Magnesium Glass

Most metals are made of crystals. This is because as metal solidifies from a liquid the metal atoms arrange themselves in regular patterns thereby reducing their energy in accordance to the laws of thermodynamics. These regular patterns can take many forms but in metals the most frequently observed are Face Centred Cubic Crystals (FCC), Hexagonal Packed Crystals (HCP) or Body Centred Cubic Crystals (BCC). If a metal is cooled very quickly the atoms do not have time to organise themselves into one of the crystal structures and are frozen in a more random state. Because there is no longer an order these structures are called amorphous. Glass is the archetypal material with an amorphous structure, and so the term glass is also synonymous with amorphous. This magnesium glass is a piece of magnesium metal cooled so quickly from the liquid that its crystals didn't have time to form and so it has an amorphous structure and is called an magnesium glass. Metal glasses are interesting because they tend to be much harder and stronger than their crystalline equivalents. However they are also usually very brittle.