Metastable phases, quasicrystals and solid solutions in Zr-based bulk glass-forming alloys

All the Zr-based bulk metallic glasses crystallized first into metastable crystalline structures when heated at rates of the order of the cooling rates required for glass formation. These metastable phases have lower specific volumes resulting in faster formation kinetics than those of equilibrium phases, thus, winning the phase selection at high supercoolings. The metastable phases can be quasicrystalline as icosahedral phase formation is strongly favored by noble metal addition. Increasing the Zr content to near 70 at.% resulted in the appearance of high temperature α and β-Zr type solid solution phase fields that reduce the ease of glass formation and the maximum attainable glassy thicknesses.