Mechanical response of Zr-based metallic glass

The new family of Zr-based multicomponent metallic glasses shows a beneficial combination of yield strength value as high as 2 GPa and microplasticity of up to 1% at room temperature and excellent glass-forming ability in a wide supercooled liquid region. Partial devitrification of glassy alloys upon heating or hot working above the glass transition temperature can lead to formation of nanocrystalline precipitates in the glassy matrix. In this case, the mechanical properties depend on the amount of crystalline precipitates. The nature of the brittle crystalline intermetallic phases is likely to dominate the mechanical behavior, leading to the observed decrease in ductility for the annealed samples since the deformation is no longer governed by the deformation mechanism of the amorphous phase. A fully crystallized alloy upon heating has revealed increasing ductility with temperature, exhibiting superplastic-like deformation with high elongation.