Glass transition in metallic glasses: A microscopic model of topological fluctuations in the bonding network

Understanding of the structure and dynamics of liquids and glasses at an atomistic level lags well behind that of crystalline materials, even though they are important in many fields. Metallic liquids and glasses provide an opportunity to make significant advances because of its relative simplicity. We propose a microscopic model based on the concept of topological fluctuations in the bonding network. The predicted glass transition temperature, Tg, shows excellent agreement with experimental observations in metallic glasses. To our knowledge this is the first model to predict the glass transition temperature quantitatively from measurable macroscopic variables.