On Structural Rearrangements during the Vitrification of Molten Copper.

We utilise displacement analysis of Cu-atoms between the chemical bond-centred Voronoi polyhedrons to reveal structural changes at the glass transition. We confirm that the disordered congruent bond lattice of Cu loses its rigidity above the glass transition temperature ( T g ) in line with Kantor-Webman theorem due to percolation via configurons (broken Cu-Cu chemical bonds). We reveal that the amorphous Cu has the T g = 794 ± 10 K at the cooling rate q = 1 × 10 13 K/s and that the determination of T g based on analysis of first sharp diffraction minimum (FDSM) is sharper compared with classical Wendt-Abraham empirical criterion.