A novel view of the nature of formation of metallic glasses, their structural relaxation, and crystallization

An alternative concept of the formation of the defect structure and properties of metallic glasses—the interstitialcy theory (IT), which has been actively developed recently—is systematically laid out. The premises and basic hypotheses of the IT are presented, and the experimental data pertaining to the assessment of its adequacy are considered. The multifaceted relation between the relaxation of the shear elasticity and heat phenomena upon various types of thermal processing of metallic glasses is analyzed in detail. A simple mathematical IT formalism is shown to provide a good description of experimental data. The most important result of the IT is an adequate description of the excess thermodynamic potentials of metallic glasses. Problems surrounding the IT and approaches to its further development are considered.