On the relationship the properties of metallic glasses and their maternal crystals

One can reasonably expect that the properties of metallic glasses should be related with the properties of the maternal crystals used for their preparation. This issue, however, is not raised in the literature, with a few exceptions. The paper briefly summarizes the results of a comparison of the changes of the shear modulus, density and kinetics of the thermal effects in metallic glasses occurring during structural relaxation, in the supercooled liquid state and upon crystallization. It has been demonstrated that the magnitudes of the thermal effects as well as density variations can be predicted considering the changes of the shear modulus of the glass with respect to the shear modulus of the maternal crystal, which indicates a genetic relationship between the properties of the glass and those of the maternal crystal. In this case, in an energetical sense, the maternal crystal can be interpreted as a ground state of the glass, the excess internal energy of which is determined by the elastic energy of the system of interstitial-type “defects” occurring upon melting and subsequent melt quenching.