Bulk metallic glasses based on binary rare earth elements

Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are usually based on single element such as Zr, Cu, and Fe. In this work, we report the formation of a series of BMGs based on arbitrarily selected binary rare earth elements. Compared with single-base BMGs, the binary-base BMGs have unique characteristics of excellent glass-forming ability, tunable physical, chemical and mechanical properties. The binary-base BMGs might be of significance in scientific studies and have potential applications, and the approach for formation of metallic glasses has implications in the search for new BMG systems.