Power-law scaling of dynamical and structural signatures in liquid metallic nano-film

Structural and dynamical features of a liquid metallic nano-film during cooling are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Several unique structural transformations from liquid to nano-crystalline or glass are observed. Moreover, the crystalline fraction change and motion propensity are discussed in detail. Results indicate a close relation between the local structural ordering and the dynamic signature. We use a new parameter P(a,τ,ν) as an effective indicator for predicting both local structural order and motion propensity in a metallic nano-film, and find that the fraction of crystalline clusters follows a negative power-law scaling with the cooling rate increasing, which is the inverse of P(a,τ,ν). © 2011 Europhysics Letters Association.