•Gerhard Wilde
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institute of Nanotechnology, P.O.B. 3640,
76021 Karlsruhe
It has been suggested that thermal stability and fragility of (metallic)
glasses are related such that the less fragile systems are more stable.
Moreover, it has been proposed that fragility and the temperature dependence
of the excess thermodynamic properties, e.g. the differences in specific
heat between the undercooled melt and the crystalline equilibrium phases
are directly correlated. Consequently, it would be expected that the most
fragile systems show the highest stability and the largest temperature
dependence of the excess thermodynamic properties, especially if chemically
similar alloys are compared. In order to check these assumptions, a complete
set of experimental data for different Pd-rich bulk glass forming alloys,
i.e. Pd40Ni40P20, Pd77.5Cu6Si16.5 and Pd43Cu27Ni10P20, has been used to
perform a detailed comparison between the fragility characteristics and
the thermal stability of the chemically similar alloys.