A group of ductile metallic glasses prepared by modifying the local structure of icosahedral quasicrystals

Abstract

Abstract Inspired by researches into the association between icosahedral local orders and the plasticity of metallic glasses (MGs), beryllium (Be) was added to the icosahedral quasi-crystal forming alloy Zr40Ti40Ni20. In this way, bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) with favorable compressive plasticity were fabricated. Therein, the icosahedral quasi-crystalline phase is the main competing phase of amorphous phases and icosahedral local orders are one of the main local atomic motifs in amorphous phases. The alloys of (Zr40Ti40Ni20)76Be24 and (Zr40Ti40Ni20)72Be28 with their greater plastic strain capacity show similar characteristics to highly-plastic amorphous systems: the serrated flow of compression curves always follows a near-exponential distribution; the primary and secondary shear bands intersect each other, bifurcate, and bend; typical vein patterns are densely distributed on the fracture surfaces. The relaxation enthalpy of four MGs is linearly correlated with the plastic strain, that is, the greater the relaxation enthalpy, the larger the plastic strain.