Ni- and Be-free Zr-based bulk metallic glasses with high glass-forming ability and unusual plasticity

Pronounced Plasticity Caused by Phase Separation and β-relaxation Synergistically in Zr-Cu-Al-Mo Bulk Metallic Glasses

Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are known to have extraordinary merits such as ultrahigh strength and dynamic toughness etc. but tied to the detrimental brittleness, which has become a critical issue to the engineering application and understanding the glass nature. In this article, we report a new class of Zr-Cu-Al-Mo BMGs with extraordinary plastic strain above 20%. "Work-hardening" effect after yielding in a wide range of plastic deformation process has been detected for this kind of BMGs. Compositional heterogeneity, which can be classified into ZrMo- and Cu-rich zones, was differentiated in this kind of BMG. Pronounced humps have been observed on the high frequency kinetic spectrum in Mo containing BMGs, which is the indicator of β-relaxation transition. The underlying mechanism for the excellent plastic deforming ability of this class of BMGs is ascribed to the synergistic effects of soft ZrMo-rich glass formed through phase separation and abundant flow units which related to β-relaxation.

Sink property of metallic glass free surfaces

When heated to a temperature close to glass transition temperature, metallic glasses (MGs) begin to crystallize. Under deformation or particle irradiation, crystallization occurs at even lower temperatures. Hence, phase instability represents an application limit for MGs. Here, we report that MG membranes of a few nanometers thickness exhibit properties different from their bulk MG counterparts. The study uses in situ transmission electron microscopy with concurrent heavy ion irradiation and annealing to observe crystallization behaviors of MGs. For relatively thick membranes, ion irradiations introduce excessive free volumes and thus induce nanocrystal formation at a temperature linearly decreasing with increasing ion fluences. For ultra-thin membranes, however, the critical temperature to initiate crystallization is about 100 K higher than the bulk glass transition temperature. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that this effect is due to the sink property of the surfaces which can effectively remove excessive free volumes. These findings suggest that nanostructured MGs having a higher surface to volume ratio are expected to have higher crystallization resistance, which could pave new paths for materials applications in harsh environments requiring higher stabilities.

Investigation of the mechanical properties and local structural evolution of Ti60Zr10Ta15Si15 bulk metallic glass during tensile deformation: a molecular dynamics study

The investigations on the structural properties and local deformation mechanism of Ti₆₀Zr₁₀Ta₁₅Si₁₅ bulk metallic glass (BMG) have been conducted by using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for the uniaxial tension process.