Propensity of bond exchange as a window into the mechanical properties of metallic glasses

W Jiao and XL Wang and S Lan and SP Pan and ZP Lu, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 106, 061910 (2015).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4908122

We investigated the mechanical properties of Zr-Cu-Al bulk metallic glasses, by compression experiment and molecular dynamics simulations. From the simulation, we found that the large, solvent atom, Zr, has high propensity of bond exchange compared to those of the smaller solute atoms. The difference in bond exchange is consistent with the observed disparity in mechanical behaviors: Zr-rich metallic glass exhibits low elastic modulus and large plastic strain. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements suggest that the increased propensity in bond exchange is related to the softening of Zr bonds with increasing Zr content. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

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