Ideal solution behaviour of glassy Cu–Ti,Zr,Hf alloys and properties of amorphous copper

•Ideal solution behaviour (ISB) is established in all Cu–Ti,Zr,Hf glassy alloys.•ISB enables reliable estimates for various properties of amorphous Cu.•ISB also impacts glass forming ability in these and probably other similar alloys. A comprehensive study of selected properties of amorphous (a) Cu–TE alloys (TE=Ti, Zr and Hf) has been performed. Data for average atomic volumes of a-Cu–Hf, Ti alloys combined with literature data show that ideal solution behaviour (Vegard’s law) extends over the whole glass forming range (GFR) in all a-Cu–TE alloys. This enables one to obtain an insight into some properties and probable atomic arrangements for both, a-TEs (Ristić et al., 2010) and a-Cu by extrapolation of the data for alloys. Indeed the atomic volumes and other properties studied for all a-Cu–TE alloys extrapolate to the same values for a-Cu. Depending on the property, these values are either close to those of crystalline (c) Cu, or are close to those for liquid (L) Cu. In particular, the electronic transport properties of a-Cu seem close to those of L-Cu, whereas the static properties, such as the density of states, and Young’s modulus, converge to those of c-Cu. The possible impact of these results on our understanding of a-Cu–TE alloys, including glass forming ability, is discussed.