Origin of embrittlement in metallic glasses
Abstract
Annealing embrittlement of metallic glasses is widely recognized as detrimental to their technological advancement, yet lacks fundamental understanding. Here, we identify a one-to-one correspondence between fracture toughness and shear modulus, which points to a correlation between liquid fragility and annealing embrittlement sensitivity. From a scientific perspective, this finding provides a thermodynamic and structural origin of annealing embrittlement, revealing that lower potential energy glass states having higher flow barriers and atomic structures with higher degree of order will demonstrate a lower fracture toughness. From a technological perspective, this result suggests that fragile glass formers would be more prone to annealing embrittlement compared with stronger glass formers, and as such, their fracture toughness would be more sensitive to their processing history.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 29, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1610920113
Entities
People
- Glenn R. Garrett
- Marios D. Demetriou
- Maximilien E. Launey
- William L. Johnson
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology
- Division of Materials Research
- Office of Naval Research