Size-dependent deformation behavior in nanosized amorphous metals suggesting transition from collective to individual atomic transport

The underlying atomistic mechanism of deformation is a central problem in mechanics and materials science. Whereas deformation of crystalline metals is fundamentally understood, the understanding of deformation of amorphous metals lacks behind, particularly identifying the involved temporal and spat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2023-09, Vol.14 (1), p.5987-5987, Article 5987
Main Authors: Liu, Naijia, Sohn, Sungwoo, Na, Min Young, Park, Gi Hoon, Raj, Arindam, Liu, Guannan, Kube, Sebastian A., Yuan, Fusen, Liu, Yanhui, Chang, Hye Jung, Schroers, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/1023/1026
639/301/1023/218
Amorphous materials
Deformation
Deformation mechanisms
Diffusion
Diffusion rate
Epitaxial growth
Glass transition
Humanities and Social Sciences
Materials science
Mechanics
Mechanics (physics)
Metallic glasses
Metallurgical constituents
Metals
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Silicones
Temperature dependence
Viscous flow
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Summary:The underlying atomistic mechanism of deformation is a central problem in mechanics and materials science. Whereas deformation of crystalline metals is fundamentally understood, the understanding of deformation of amorphous metals lacks behind, particularly identifying the involved temporal and spatial scales. Here, we reveal that at small scales the size-dependent deformation behavior of amorphous metals significantly deviates from homogeneous flow, exhibiting increasing deformation rate with reducing size and gradually shifted composition. This transition suggests the deformation mechanism changes from collective atomic transport by viscous flow to individual atomic transport through interface diffusion. The critical length scale of the transition is temperature dependent, exhibiting a maximum at the glass transition. While viscous flow does not discriminate among alloy constituents, diffusion does and the constituent element with higher diffusivity deforms faster. Our findings yield insights into nano-mechanics and glass physics and may suggest alternative processing methods to epitaxially grow metallic glasses. How matter deform is a central question in mechanics of materials science. Here, the authors reveal a size-dependent deformation in amorphous metals changing at ~100 nanometer sample size from collective homogeneous flow to interface diffusion realized through individual atomic transport.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-41582-2