MONATOMIC MODEL OF ICOSAHEDRALLY ORDERED METALLIC-GLASS FORMERS

Many recent results indicate that the stability of metallic glass-forming systems with respect to crystalline nucleation depends crucially on a distinctive icosahedral local order. Real systems are either strongly bonded or composed of more than one sort of atom. The molecular dynamics simulation presented in this report demonstrates that a properly tailored pair potential can induce an icosahedral inherent local order in a simple liquid composed of identical particles. The remarkable structural stability of this model was tested in a long simulation run carried out in the temperature domain where the liquid shows clear signatures of supercooled dynamics.