Origin of different thermal cycling effects in Fe80P20 and Ni60Nb40 metallic glasses

Y Tang and HF Zhou and XD Wang and QP Cao and DX Zhang and JZ Jiang, MATERIALS TODAY PHYSICS, 17, 100349 (2021).

DOI: 10.1016/j.mtphys.2021.100349

The effect of thermal cycling on structure and properties has been explored in many metallic glasses (MGs) within last 5 years. It is critical to establish the connection between macroscopic mechanical response and the underlying atomic level process during thermal cycling. The mechanisms underlying the complexity of thermal cycling effect are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the thermal cycling effect on structural evolution and property changes in brittle Fe80P20 and ductile Ni60Nb40 MGs. Our results demonstrate that thermal cycling treatment initially delays the cavitation behavior for Fe80P20 MG and induces local-to-non-localized deformation mode change with high probability for N60Nb40 MG, despite their opposite atomic structural evolution. Specifically, with initial thermal cycling, the Fe80P20 MG prefers to relax, while Ni60Nb40 MG prefers to rejuvenate. With further thermal cycling, the Fe80P20 MG rejuvenates while Ni60Nb40 relaxes back towards a relative stable state. To reveal the origin of such opposite thermal cycling effects in these MGs, we proposed 'core-shell' structural models of MGs. Our results shed light on the atomistic understanding of the relationship between the micro-structure and thermal cycling effect in MGs, which may offer useful insights for designing and processing MGs. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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