Structural aging and rejuvenation through magnetic annealing in Fe metallic glasses

YX Wu and FQ Huang and Z Chen and HS Liu and J Zhou and HB Ke and HL Peng, JOURNAL OF NON-CRYSTALLINE SOLIDS, 665, 123608 (2025).

DOI: 10.1016/j.jnoncrysol.2025.123608

We perform the coupled molecular dynamics and spin dynamics simulations to investigate the magnetic annealing effect on the mechanical properties of Fe metallic glasses (MGs). The MGs exhibit a brittle transition with the alternative magnetic annealing at room temperature, while a ductile transition at high temperature. Through local structural analysis, we identify two distinct effects of magnetic annealing: structural aging and structural rejuvenation. The structural aging is manifested as the increase of the icosahedral (ICO) orders, while the structural rejuvenation is featured by the ICO reduction and the increase of structural entropy. The regime of structural aging or rejuvenation coincides with the mechanical behavior at different temperatures. Intriguingly, we observe a clear structural anisotropy induced by the spin-lattice interaction in the quenched samples. The structural anisotropy can be notably relieved at high temperatures through magnetic annealing. These findings unveil the structural significance through which the mechanical properties of MGs can be tuned via magnetic annealing.

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