Relaxation and diffusion in glass-forming metallic liquids

We investigate viscous liquid Pd₄₃Ni₁₀Cu₂₇P₂₀ by quasielastic neutron scattering. The signal is dominated by incoherent contributions from the Cu and Ni atoms. Spectra exhibit a structural relaxation as known from nonmetallic viscous liquids. The mean relaxation times behave indirect proportional to the square of the momentum transfer as expected for long range diffusion in the hydrodynamic limit. Resulting diffusivities are on a 10^-10m²s^-1 scale, three orders of magnitude smaller than in simple metallic liquids.