Professor Xun-li WANG, our Head of Department and Chair Professor of Physics, together with his research collaborators from Australia, Japan and United States, recently uncovered a hidden amorphous phase in the formation of metallic glass. This new breakthrough in the discovery of metallic glass formation has been published in the internationally acclaimed journal Nature Communications.
Owing to its high resilience which can sustain larger elastic deformation, metallic glass has been used in a variety of applications including but not limited to sports equipment, medical devices and electricity transformers. Building upon the discovery of the hidden amorphous phase, where atoms show a different kind of packing, researchers hope to utilize the simple processing methods such as heat treatment to develop novel materials. The discovery solved a 40-year scientific mystery and will undoubtedly signify an important milestone in the development of new and better metallic alloys.
Read more at: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14679.
Detailed news story can also be retrieved from CityU News (20 March 2017).
20 Mar 2017