Ultrastable metallic glasses formed on cold substrates

Luo, P.; Cao, Chengrong; Zhu, Fan; Lv, Yu-Miao; Liu, Y. H.; Wen, Ping; Bai, H. Y.; Vaughan, Gavin; Michiel, Marco Di; Ruta, Beatrice; Wang, W. H.

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03656-4

Cited by 102 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In accordance to the ultra‐stable glasses investigated by Ediger et al., physical vapor deposited (PVD) glasses show remarkably low fictive temperatures indicating they are close to the bottom of their potential energy landscapes, resulting in kinetic and chemical stabilities that cannot be achieved by conventional heat treatments on reasonable timescales [46, 47] . This enhanced kinetic stability has been observed in PVD organic, [48] metallic, [49] and chalcogenide [50] glasses and considering LiPON is grown by a form of PVD, it is reasonable to assume it too can display a low fictive temperature after deposition. The implication of LiPON as a low fictive temperature glass is that it is nearing the bottom of its potential energy landscape thus the energy difference between the metastable glassy state and the corresponding crystalline state is minute [51] .…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 54%

Local Structure of Glassy Lithium Phosphorus Oxynitride Thin Films: A Combined Experimental and Ab Initio Approach

et al. 2020

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Lithium phosphorus oxynitride (LiPON) is an amorphous solid-state lithium ion conductor displaying exemplary cyclability against lithium metal anodes.T here is no definitive explanation for this stability due to the limited understanding of the structure of LiPON.H erein, we provide astructural model of RF-sputtered LiPON.Information about the short-range structure results from 1D and 2D solid-state NMR experiments.T hese results are compared with first principles chemical shielding calculations of LiP -O/N crystals and ab initio molecular dynamics-generated amorphous LiP-ON models to unequivocally identify the glassy structure as primarily isolated phosphate monomers with Ni ncorporated in both apical and as bridging sites in phosphate dimers. Structural results suggest LiPON'ss tability is ar esult of its glassy character.Free-standing LiPON films are produced that exhibit ah igh degree of flexibility,h ighlighting the unique mechanical properties of glassy materials.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 54%

Local Structure of Glassy Lithium Phosphorus Oxynitride Thin Films: A Combined Experimental and Ab Initio Approach

et al. 2020

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“…Advances in ultrafast liquid quenching and deposition of thin films on cold substrates make achieving growth of amorphous ZnO films a tangible prospect. Their potential use in (photo)electronic devices will expose these films to electrons and holes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling of Intrinsic Electron and Hole Trapping in Crystalline and Amorphous ZnO

Mora‐Fonz

Shluger

2019

Adv Elect Materials

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Furthermore, even thermodynamically stable phases, for example, zincblende or rocksalt, are only grown under very specific conditions of substrates and/or at high pressure (see, e.g., refs. [8-12]). Although successful growth of thin a-ZnO films with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 100 nm using different techniques and on different substrates has been reported, [13-18] the morphology of these films remains controversial due to the lack of high intensity X-ray diffraction or grazing incidence X-ray and neutron diffraction characterization. Many of such films are reported to contain nanocrystalline inclusions. [13,16,18-20] Amid largely unsuccessful attempts to grow good quality a-ZnO films, theoretical predictions of a-ZnO have been more optimistic. Stable a-ZnO structures have been produced using mainly ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) melt and quench (MQ) methods. [21-26] These computationally demanding calculations use small periodic cells, very high cooling rates, and provide limited statistics of structural characteristics. The sampling of the a-ZnO configurational space has been, therefore, poor and a distribution of electronic properties has not been provided yet. Recently, we investigated the ability of bulk ZnO to form glass structures using interatomic potentials (IPs) and an MQ procedure within isothermal-isobaric (NPT) ensemble. [27] This allowed us to use large (up to 768 000 atoms) periodic cells and improve the statistics of the distribution of a-ZnO structural characteristics. These calculations have demonstrated that cooling rates in an MQ procedure around 100 K ps −1 lead to the formation of stable and uniform amorphous structures. ZnO samples show, however, different degrees of crystallinity at lower cooling rates. The average density of a-ZnO samples produced using IPs is about 5.04 g cm −3 and the coordination numbers of Zn and O atoms are around 3.9, reflecting the strong propensity to crystallization. Still, the stability tests carried out using the activation-relaxation technique (ART) [28-32] and simulated annealing demonstrated that the obtained amorphous structures are stable. [27] Advances in ultrafast liquid quenching and deposition of thin films on cold substrates [33-36] make achieving growth of amorphous ZnO films a tangible prospect. Their potential use in (photo)electronic devices will expose these films to electrons and holes. Therefore, questions arise whether a-ZnO films will retain good electron mobility and whether there is any possibility for electron or hole localization due to disorder. Such Recent advances in ultrafast liquid quenching and deposition of thin films on cold substrates make growing amorphous (a)-ZnO films increasingly feasible. The electronic structure and electron and hole trapping properties of amorphous ZnO are predicted using density functional theory (DFT) simulations with a hybrid density functional (h-DFT). An ensemble of fifty 324-atom structures is employed to obtain the distribution of structural and electronic properties of a-ZnO. The results demon...

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“…Over the past decade, a variety of systems have been shown to produce stable glasses (SGs) during PVD, when the deposition temperature (T dep ) is held below their glass transition temperature (Tg ) (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). SGs have improved thermal (1,2,6,9) and kinetic stability (3,4,7,8,10) compared to liquid quenched (LQ) glasses, resembling glasses aged for hundreds or millions of years. Most SGs are also shown to have anisotropic packing that depends on the deposition conditions and molecular structures (10)(11)(12)(13).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Polyamorphism of vapor-deposited amorphous selenium in response to light

Zhang

Jin

Liu

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Enhanced surface mobility is critical in producing stable glasses during physical vapor deposition. In amorphous selenium (a-Se) both the structure and dynamics of the surface can be altered when exposed to above-bandgap light. Here we investigate the effect of light on the properties of vapor-deposited a-Se glasses at a range of substrate temperatures and deposition rates. We demonstrate that deposition both under white light illumination and in the dark results in thermally and kinetically stable glasses. Compared to glasses deposited in the dark, stable a-Se glasses formed under white light have reduced thermal stability, as measured by lower density change, but show significantly improved kinetic stability, measured as higher onset temperature for transformation. While light induces enhanced mobility that penetrates deep into the surface, resulting in lower density during vapor deposition, it also acts to form more networked structures at the surface, which results in a state that is kinetically more stable with larger optical birefringence. We demonstrate that the structure formed during deposition with light is a state that is not accessible through liquid quenching, aging, or vapor deposition in the dark, indicating the formation of a unique amorphous solid state.

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Ultrastable metallic glasses formed on cold substrates

Cited by 102 publications

References 42 publications

Local Structure of Glassy Lithium Phosphorus Oxynitride Thin Films: A Combined Experimental and Ab Initio Approach

Local Structure of Glassy Lithium Phosphorus Oxynitride Thin Films: A Combined Experimental and Ab Initio Approach

Modeling of Intrinsic Electron and Hole Trapping in Crystalline and Amorphous ZnO

Polyamorphism of vapor-deposited amorphous selenium in response to light

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