Proposal for universality in the viscosity of metallic liquids

The range of magnitude of the liquid viscosity, η, as a function of temperature is one of the most impressive of any physical property, changing by approximately 17 orders of magnitude from its extrapolated value at infinite temperature (η(o)) to that at the glass transition temperature, T(g). We present experimental measurements of containerlessly processed metallic liquids that suggest that log(η/η(o)) as a function of T(A)/T is a potentially universal scaled curve. In stark contrast to previous approaches, the scaling requires only two fitting parameters, which are on average predictable. The temperature T(A) corresponds to the onset of cooperative motion and is strongly correlated with T(g), suggesting that the processes underlying the glass transition first appear in the high temperature liquid.