Assessing the Utility of Structure in Amorphous Materials

TL;DR

This paper introduces new methods for analyzing and evaluating structural descriptions in amorphous materials, including measures of diversity, utility, and incipient crystal-like organization, applied to binary atomic alloys.

Contribution

It provides a general framework and novel measures for assessing structural features in amorphous materials, especially for complex crystal-like organizations.

Findings

Defined measures of structural diversity and utility

Applied methods to binary atomic alloys

Introduced a new measure for incipient crystal-like order

Abstract

This paper presents a set of general strategies for the analysis of structure in amorphous materials and a general approach to assessing the utility of a selected structural description. Measures of structural diversity and utility are defined and applied to two model glass forming binary atomic alloys. In addition, a new measure of incipient crystal-like organization is introduced, suitable for cases where the stable crystal is a compound structure.