Crystal gene: Common motifs transcending crystals, glasses, and liquids
ORAL
Abstract
We establish through typical metallic systems Cu-Zr and Al-Sm the concept of ``crystal gene'', that is, structural order in the short-to-medium range order that transcends crystals, liquids, and glasses. With such a connection between crystalline and amorphous phases, a mature toolset for treating crystals can be used to assist the identification of complicated structural order in amorphous systems, which is a fundamental difficulty in physics and materials science. In addition, as demonstrated in the example of the Al$_{90}$Sm$_{10}$ system, the crystal gene persists from liquid to crystalline phases during the crystallization processes observed in experiments. Therefore, the identification and quantification of the crystal gene bring new insight into the atomistic transformation mechanism from the amorphous to various metastable crystalline phases, which can ultimately lead to a better understanding of phase selection in metallic alloys.
–