The glass-forming ability (GFA) of alloys, colloidal dispersions, and other particulate materials, as measured by the critical cooling rate R-c, can span more than ten orders of magnitude. Even after numerous previous studies, the physical features that control the GFA are still not well understood. For example, it is well known that mixtures are better glass formers than monodisperse systems and that particle size and cohesive energy differences among constituents improve the GFA, but it is not currently known how particle size differences couple to cohesive energy differences to determine the GFA. We perform molecular dynamics simulations to determine the GFA of equimolar, binary Lennard-Jones (LJ) mixtures versus the normalized cohesive energy difference epsilon_ and mixing energy (epsilon) over bar (AB) between particles A and B. We find several important results. First, the log(10)R(c) contours in the (epsilon) over bar (AB)-epsilon_ plane are ellipsoidal for all diameter ratios, and thus R-c is determined by the Mahalanobis distance d(M) from a given point in the (epsilon) over bar (AB)-epsilon_ plane to the center of the ellipsoidal contours. Second, LJ systems for which the larger particles have larger cohesive energy are generally better glass formers than those for which the larger particles have smaller cohesive energy. Third, d(M)(epsilon_,(epsilon) over bar (AB)) is determined by the relative Voronoi volume difference between particles and local chemical order S-AB, which gives the average fraction of nearest-neighbor B particles surrounding an A particle and vice versa. In particular, the shifted Mahalanobis distance d(M) - d(M)(0), versus the shifted chemical order S-AB - S-AB(0) collapses onto a hyperbolic master curve for all diameter ratios. These results identify design guidelines for improving the GFA of binary mixtures containing particles with different sizes, cohesive, and mixing energies.
