CHEMICAL SHORT-RANGE ORDER IN LIQUID-META L ALLOYS

Due to improvements of high temperature calorimetry, the quantity of l iquid alloys showing large negative departures from ideality increased strongly during tlast decades. Such a behaviour o is now explained by the occurrence of chemical short-range order (CSRO), the stoichiometr y of which is often elucidated from direct structural determinations a s well as from modelization of the thermodynamic functions. In some ex treme cases, the destruction of CSRO by increasing temperature lead to a genuine second order transition. The short review of experimental r esults concerning the variation of physical properties of some liquid alloys vs. temperature and concentration agrees well with CSRO. Some e xamples of structural determination of CSRO in metallic melts are give n. Finally, links between CSRO and phase diagrams and between CSRO and glass-forming ability are also examined.