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Tensile ductility and necking of metallic glass

Nature Materials volume 6, pages 735–739 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Metallic glasses have a very high strength, hardness and elastic limit. However, they rarely show tensile ductility at room temperature and are considered quasi-brittle materials1,2. Although these amorphous metals are capable of shear flow, severe plastic instability sets in at the onset of plastic deformation, which seems to be exclusively localized in extremely narrow shear bands ∼10 nm in thickness3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Using in situ tensile tests in a transmission electron microscope, we demonstrate radically different deformation behaviour for monolithic metallic-glass samples with dimensions of the order of 100 nm. Large tensile ductility in the range of 23–45% was observed, including significant uniform elongation and extensive necking or stable growth of the shear offset. This large plasticity in small-volume metallic-glass samples did not result from the branching/deflection of shear bands or nanocrystallization. These observations suggest that metallic glasses can plastically deform in a manner similar to their crystalline counterparts, via homogeneous and inhomogeneous flow without catastrophic failure. The sample-size effect discovered has implications for the application of metallic glasses in thin films and micro-devices, as well as for understanding the fundamental mechanical response of amorphous metals.

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Figure 1: Small-volume metallic-glass samples for the in situ tensile straining experiment in the TEM.
Figure 2: Sample I at various stages of tensile elongation during the in situ TEM experiment.
Figure 3: The necking process in sample II observed during the in situ tensile testing in the TEM.
Figure 4: TEM bright-field images and corresponding electron diffraction patterns (insets) of the in situ tested samples at various stages of straining.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 50125103, 50671104 and 50625103) and the ‘Hundred of Talents Project’ of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) are gratefully acknowledged. The authors were also part of the MANS research team, supported in part by CAS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

    H. Guo, P. F. Yan, Y. B. Wang, J. Tan, Z. F. Zhang & M. L. Sui

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA

    E. Ma

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Correspondence to M. L. Sui.

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Guo, H., Yan, P., Wang, Y. et al. Tensile ductility and necking of metallic glass. Nature Mater 6, 735–739 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1984

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