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Ductility and work hardening in nano-sized metallic glasses
D. Z. Chen, X. W. Gu, Q. An, W. A. Goddard III, and J. R. Greer
Citation: Applied Physics Letters
106
, 061903 (2015); doi: 10.1063/1.4907773
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4907773
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/106/6?ver=pdfcov
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Ductility and work hardening in nano-sized metallic glasses
D. Z. Chen,
1,
a)
X. W. Gu,
2
Q. An,
3
W. A. Goddard III,
3
and J. R. Greer
1,4
1
Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
California 91125, USA
2
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
California 91125, USA
3
Materials and Process Simulation Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
California 91125, USA
4
The Kavli Nanoscience Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
(Received 5 December 2014; accepted 28 January 2015; published online 9 February 2015)
In-situ
nano-tensile experiments on 70 nm-diameter free-standing electroplated NiP metallic glass
nanostructures reveal tensile true strains of

18%, an amount comparable to compositionally iden-
tical 100 nm-diameter focused ion beam samples and

3 times greater than 100 nm-diameter elec-
troplated samples. Simultaneous
in-situ
observations and stress-strain data during post-elastic
deformation reveal necking and work hardening, features uncharacteristic for metallic glasses. The
evolution of free volume within molecular dynamics-simulated samples suggests a free surface-
mediated relaxation mechanism in nano-sized metallic glasses.
V
C
2015 AIP Publishing LLC
.
[
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4907773
]
In 1960, Klement
et al.
revealed the possibility of a sta-
ble amorphous phase for a binary metallic alloy, obtainable
via extremely rapid cooling.
1
Since then, such amorphous
metal alloys, or metallic glasses (MG), with two or more
components have been fabricated and tested for their me-
chanical properties, and represent materials with high
strength, high elastic limit, and superior fatigue resistance.
2
However, due to their random packing and a lack of known
plasticity carriers, such as dislocations in their crystalline
counterparts, failure in room-temperature monolithic bulk
metallic glasses under tension is typically catastrophic at the
elastic limit,
3
and significant research has been directed at
toughening and at inducing ductility into these very strong,
yet brittle materials.
Some successful attempts to toughen MG have involved
the use of heterostructures and composites to impede shear
band propagation or to promote the formation of multiple dif-
fuse, non-catastrophic, and shear bands.
4
7
These methods
were shown to be effective in delaying failure, but the formu-
lation of intrinsic physical mechanisms responsible for sus-
tainable plasticity under tensile loading has been sparse.
Recent
in-situ
observations of a brittle-to-ductile transition
emergent in nanometer-sized metallic glasses under tension
suggest a mechanism for plasticity not involving shear
bands.
8
11
In one such work, Jang
et al.
demonstrated that
Zr
35
Ti
30
Co
6
Be
29
metallic glass nano-cylinders underwent a
transition from catastrophic shear banding in samples with
diameters greater than 100 nm to a ductile necking-to-shear-
banding deformation prior to failure in thinner samples.
Stress-strain data in these samples show distinct work harden-
ing to

25% true strain and permanent plastic deformation
upon unloading past the elastic limit.
9
Similar plasticity and
necking have been reported for electroplated (EP) NiP MGs
with diameters of 100 nm and below that were fabricated with
and without the use of focused ion beam (FIB),
10
as well as
for melt-spinned CuZr MGs with diameters 70–120 nm fabri-
cated with FIB.
11
Necking and strain hardening are typical for
crystalline metals and metal alloys, whose plastic flow is
enabled by the motion and interactions of dislocations but are
anomalous for amorphous metals. These findings leave us
with two important open questions: (1) What is responsible
for the plastic flow and (2) why does strain hardening occur?
It has been speculated that size-induced brittle-to-ductile
transition may be caused by a surface modulated mechanism
that governs extendibility, an idea supported by the addi-
tional enhancement in ductility in ion-irradiated sam-
ples.
9
,
10
,
12
Such a mechanism would have consequences for
both the sample size as well as sample surface energy state.
To explore the physical origins of emergent plasticity and
hardening in nano-sized metallic glasses, we performed
in-
situ
nano-tensile experiments on

70 nm-diameter electro-
plated NiP MG samples, whose surface area-to-volume ratio
is

0.06, representing a 50% enhancement in the relative
role of the sample surface compared to 0.04 for

100 nm
samples.
To fabricate the 70 nm-diameter NiP samples, we
employed similar fabrication parameters as in Ref.
10
with a
reduced pore size in the templates. This enabled the fabrica-
tion of chemically identical but smaller electroplated NiP
MG samples (see Table
I
). Figure
1
shows an array of electro-
plated pillars (Fig.
1(a)
) as well as a schematic of the fabrica-
tion process (Fig.
1(b)
). Repeatability of the electroplating
process suggests that the 70 nm-diameter pillars studied here
TABLE I. Geometry and composition of samples.
Sample
Composition (wt. %)
Diameter (nm)
Length (nm)
100 nm FIB
P–14.0 Ni–86.0
93.4
6
7.77
598.2
6
21.97
100 nm EP
P–14.9 Ni–85.1
104.8
6
6.46
633.0
6
76.57
70 nm EP
P–14.9 Ni–85.1
68.2
6
2.98
433.9
6
10.19
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:
dzchen@caltech.edu
0003-6951/2015/106(6)/061903/5/$30.00
V
C
2015 AIP Publishing LLC
106
, 061903-1
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
106
, 061903 (2015)
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have nominally the same chemical composition and amor-
phous microstructure as the 100nm-diameter samples.
10
Uniaxial tensile experiments were performed in a
custom-made
in situ
scanning electron microscope (SEM)
with a nanomechanical module, InSEM
TM
(Nanomechanics,
Inc.), at a constant nominal displacement rate (0.4–0.6
nms

1
), resulting in a global strain rate of

0.001 s

1
.The
ultimate tensile strengths were comparable across all samples:
1.92
6
0.14 GPa for 70 nm-EP studied in this work;
1.87
6
0.38 GPa for 100 nm-EP and 1.91
6
0.36 GPa for
100 nm FIB-carved samples from Ref.
10
. Plastic strain,
defined as
e
p
¼
e
total

e
elastic
, was nearly the same for the
70 nm-EP and 100 nm-FIB samples at 2.0%
6
0.5% and
2.0%
6
1.0%, respectively. These values are

2.5 times
higher than the plastic strain for 100 nm-EP samples,

0.8%
6
0.4%. Elastic moduli were consistent across all
samples: 71.4
6
32.9 GPa for 70 nm EP, 63.6
6
13.4 GPa for
100 nm-FIB, and 60.3
6
17.7 GPa for 100 nm-EP. Contrary to
the catastrophic failure via shear banding at the elastic limit
often seen in large MG samples under tension, the 70 nm-
diameter samples studied in this work show nonlinear
plasticity of

2% engineering strain (

14% true strain) along
with necking and work hardening, characteristics typically
associated with ductile crystalline metals and alloys. Other
observations of necking in nano-sized metallic glasses have
been reported, but are limited, occurring in 100 nm FIB-
milled Zr-based MG structures (set of three),
8
isolated FIB-
milled 100 nm Zr-based pillars,
10
isolated FIB-milled
70–120 nm CuZr samples,
11
and isolated FIB-exposed Pt-
based MG wires.
12
In distinction, our samples are simultane-
ously freestanding, smaller, and FIB-free.
Figure
2
shows SEM images of a typical as-plated sam-
ple (Fig.
2(a)
) and a time-lapsed progression from the
in-situ
tension test (Figs.
2(b)–2(f)
). The corresponding engineering
and true stress-strain data are provided for the representative
sample (Figs.
2(g)
and
2(h)
). True stresses and strains were
obtained from measuring the sample diameter in the neck
region by performing image analysis on the
in-situ
SEM
video snapshots (Fig.
3(b)
). Average values for engineering
ultimate tensile strength and plastic strain for the seven
tested samples, on which all statistics are based, are provided
in Figure
3
, along with those for the 100 nm-diameter sam-
ples from Ref.
10
for comparison.
One mode of deformation in MGs is the spontaneous col-
lective rearrangements of

10–20-atom clusters,
13
18
com-
monly referred to as shear transformation zones (STZs).
19
,
20
Room-temperature tensile plasticity in metallic glasses is typ-
ically nonexistent because in these conditions the STZs
strain-soften and coalesce quickly to form shear bands that
lead to sample failure. Homogeneous deformation in mono-
lithic bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) normally only occurs at
elevated temperatures, above or near the glass-transition,
with failure marked by necking and drawing to a point
instead of shear banding.
3
,
21
23
The 70 nm-diameter EP
FIG. 1. (a) Electroplated MG samples. (b) Schematic of the template elec-
troplating procedure.
FIG. 2. (a)–(f) Corresponding
in-situ
SEM micrograph snapshots of the de-
formation—contrast adjusted. Necking
can be observed in the boxed region of
panel (e). (g) and (h) Engineering and
true stress strain curves with corre-
sponding SEM images at A: initial
loading, B: elastic limit, C: plasticity,
and D: necking prior to failure. Error
bars represent measurement error of di-
ameter in necked region.
061903-2 Chen
etal.
Appl. Phys. Lett.
106
, 061903 (2015)
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samples studied in this work, as well as the 100 nm-diameter
FIB and EP samples,
10
show significant post-elastic deform-
ability at room temperature, yet still fail via propagation of a
single shear band. This demonstrates that nano-size metallic
glasses (nano-MGs) with diameters of 70–100nm behave in a
way that is simultaneously distinctive to room-temperature
failure and to near T
g
-temperature plastic flow in tensed mon-
olithic bulk MGs. What sets them apart is the emergence of
work hardening, which suggests that an internal hardening
mechanism exists in nano-MGs.
The competing energy of crack-like shear band propaga-
tion and homogeneous plastic flow has been used to explain
the suppression of shear band propagation in nano-
MGs.
9
,
12
,
24
This is helpful in understanding the general
deformation phenomena but lacks information about the
underlying physical processes that drive plasticity and work
hardening. To gain insight into these physical processes, we
carried out Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations on
30 nm-diameter Ni
80
Al
20
metallic glass cylinders using an
embedded atom method (EAM) potential
25
in LAMMPS.
26
Cylinders were cut from bulk MG made by simulated
quenching; periodic boundaries were used in the axial direc-
tion, with the cylinder surfaces free. The strain rate was
10
8
s

1
, a value that represents a compromise between quali-
tative accuracy and feasible computational time.
27
A Ni-Al
EAM potential was chosen to be consistent with our previous
work in Ref.
10
. Ni-Al and Ni-P glasses possess different
bonding types, which may give rise to differences in failure
modes. For example, in metal-metalloid compounds (e.g.,
Ni-P) cavitation-induced brittle failure has been observed
depending on the degree of stress triaxiality.
28
,
29
Despite
these differences in bonding characteristics, the free volume
dynamics of Ni-P and Ni-Al are likely similar because both
systems are amorphous. Earlier we mentioned that sample
surface energy state plays an important role in the brittle-
to-ductile transition,
10
,
12
so we tracked the evolution of free
volume distribution across two different sample types: (1)
as-cast (Figs.
4(a)
and
4(c)
) and (2) irradiated (Figs.
4(b)
and
4(d)
), as a function of tensile strain. Free volume was chosen
as an effective parameter for the extent of relaxation and not
intended to invoke free volume theory,
22
,
30
which may have
pitfalls when used for non-Van der Waals systems.
31
,
32
In
our metallic system, “free volume” is more appropriately a
measure of the local densities or inferred atomic level
stresses.
33
,
34
We binned the pillars into 1 A
̊
-thick concentric
hollow cylinders, and using a simple Voronoi tessellation
(Fig.
4(e)
), estimated the free volume, or local density, distri-
bution by an excess Voronoi volume, defined as the normal-
ized average binned Voronoi volume at each strain (0%, 1%,
3%, 5%, and 7%) minus the mean Voronoi volume over the
whole system at the initial configuration (0% strain). The
irradiated sample initially had

2%–3% higher free volume,
mostly localized within 0.6–0.9 d/d
max
away from the center,
compared to the as-cast sample because of the collision cas-
cades caused by the irradiation process. The computations
reveal that during initial elastic loading (0% to

5% strain),
the free volume in both samples increased uniformly and iso-
tropically in the core, d/d
max
<
0.95 (Figs.
4(c)
and
4(d)
).
This can be attributed to bond length dilation associated with
elastic deformation. Past

5% strain, the free volume
evolved differently in the core region, d/d
max
<
0.95, com-
pared with the near-surface region, d/d
max
>
0.95 (Figs.
4(a)
and
4(b)
). The core region attained saturation in free volume
despite the local atomic strains showing significant activ-
ity,
10
meaning the atoms had rearranged but no free volume
was accumulated overall. In contrast, this saturation does not
occur in the near-surface region, d/d
max
>
0.95, of the cylin-
drical samples nor does it occur in a bulk sample (Fig.
4(f)
)
with periodic boundaries. Conservation of total volume dur-
ing plastic deformation is expected in metals where crystal-
lographic slip via shear processes gives rise to plasticity. It
does not necessarily hold for metallic glasses, whose com-
mon mechanisms of atomic-scale deformation, STZ-type
and diffusive-jump-type, are both dilatational.
3
A semi-
permanent local increase in volume occurs in the course of
either mechanism in addition to a transient dilatation that is
necessary to overcome saddle points in the energy land-
scape.
3
In our results on
bulk
NiAl metallic glass with peri-
odic boundaries in all directions, the Voronoi volume
continues to increase during plasticity, after loading past 5%
strain (Fig.
4(f)
), albeit at a different rate than during elastic
loading. Following this line of reasoning, maintaining a con-
stant volume distribution in the pillar cores requires that the
near-surface regions absorb the local dilatational processes,
which leads to a mechanism where the outer region adjacent
to the free surface may serve as a free volume “sink.”
We propose the following mechanism for plasticity: the
core atoms undergo local dilatations, which subsequently
FIG. 3. (a) Ultimate tensile strengths
for all samples. (b) True stress strain
comparison. (c) Engineering plastic
strains.
061903-3 Chen
etal.
Appl. Phys. Lett.
106
, 061903 (2015)
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rearrange and annihilate near the free surface. This process,
involving a relaxation through the free surface, is consistent
with the observed

10% increase in the excess volume
between 3% and 5% strain followed by a

10% decrease
between 5% and 7% strain in the near-surface region of the
as-cast system (Fig.
4(a)
). This process may be similar to dif-
fusional relaxation, and we can estimate that it occurs at a
faster rate than shear localization, using free volume dynam-
ics theory.
22
,
27
The ability of the atomic clusters in the vicin-
ity of the free surface to absorb excess free volume may
derive from their relatively unconstrained access to lower
local free volume configurations. We postulate that the
depletion in the overall free volume within the core of the
pillar caused by this relaxation delays shear localization and
temporarily shifts the deformation to a quasi-homogeneous
mode. Following this phenomenological description, the
observed size effects of ductility and hardening may emanate
from the higher surface area-to-volume ratio in smaller-
diameter cylinders, which allows the entire sample to
undergo a more homogenous-like deformation before signifi-
cant shear localization occurs.
Enhanced ductility has also been reported for nano-sized
samples whose surfaces have been bombarded with ions
(e.g., during FIB-milling),
9
,
10
,
12
increasing the energy of the
free surface by generating excess free volume near the sur-
face and inducing a relatively homogeneous distribution of
saddle-point configurations. In our simulations, irradiated
samples show a local decrease in the free volume during
elastic loading (Fig.
4(b)
) and in the relaxation of the saddle-
point configurations near the surface. Between 3% and 5%
strain, the free volume in the near-surface region no longer
decreases, which suggests a competition between the free
volume generation due to dilatation and the loss of free vol-
ume at the near-surface sink. More revealing is the process
between 5% and 7% plastic strain, where a local volume
increase of

5% is seen farther away from the free surface
than in the as-cast sample, d/d
max

0.95 (indicated by black
arrow, Fig.
4(b)
), and relaxation again occurs closer to the
free surface, d/d
max
>
0.98. These observations suggest that
FIB-milling may effectively broaden the near-surface region,
enabling relaxation to occur further from the free surface,
reducing the diameter of the core region, and promoting
homogeneous-like deformation.
Work hardening in the nano-sized MGs may stem from
relaxation through atomic arrangements in the outer surface
region leading to a deficiency of free volume in the core of
the nano-sized cylinder and suppressing the coalescence of
shear-softened regions into a catastrophic shear band. This
occurs after the rate of relaxation through the surface becomes
comparable with the rate of local dilatation events within the
sample, which results in a necked region with quasi-
homogeneous flow and a state of free volume “starvation,”
FIG. 4. Excess Voronoi volume in the
((a) and (b)) near surface region, outer
5%–6% of pillar, and the ((c) and (d))
core region for the as-cast system ((a)
and (c)) and the irradiated system ((b)
and (d)). The grated region indicates
when plasticity occurs. Each point in
plots (a)–(d) represents values aver-
aged over a 1 A
̊
-thick hollow cylindri-
cal bin. (e) A coarse-grained top-down
schematic of the binning procedure.
The core region, blue, is plotted in (c)
and (d), while the near-surface region,
red outer ring, is plotted in (a) and (b).
(f) Excess Voronoi volume versus
strain for a bulk NiAl system.
061903-4 Chen
etal.
Appl. Phys. Lett.
106
, 061903 (2015)
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somewhat analogous to dislocation starvation in single crys-
talline nanopillars.
35
Hardening may be the natural result of
the densification and relaxation of local dilatations, similar to
what is seen in notched bulk MGs under induced multiaxial
stress states.
28
,
36
The complexity of metallic glasses prevents
a more rigorous explanation of the relaxation mechanism, as
the deformation modes in MGs are still not fully understood,
but this phenomenological description attempts to capture all
the salient experimental observations.
In addition to its complex microstructure, another major
challenge to studying amorphous metals is the apparent dis-
connect in deformation mechanisms between BMGs and
nano-MGs. When tensed at room temperature, the only plas-
ticity mechanism present in macro-sized monolithic samples
is failure via one or more catastrophic shear bands.
3
At the
nanoscale, tensile failure exhibits a size effect, which is man-
ifested by a transition from brittle-like shear band propaga-
tion in larger samples (i.e., greater than

100 nm) to a more
ductile mode, in which shear banding is suppressed and
necking/work hardening is observed.
8
10
These differences
likely stem from the rate dependence of an amorphous sys-
tem on the structural dynamics of being driven from its met-
astable state. In bulk samples, at room temperature, the
system cannot relax appreciably in response to strain energy
because dissipation mechanisms are kinetically limited,
whereas in a nano-sized sample this may occur through the
free surface. The implication of such a mechanism is that at
room temperatures nano-MGs exhibit mechanical properties
foreign to monolithic BMGs, i.e., ductility and work harden-
ing, and that these properties can be obtained by simply tun-
ing the surface area to volume ratio. The idea that plasticity
in metallic glasses is dependent on structural dynamics is
also supported by various experiments showing its strain-rate
and temperature dependence. Slower strain rates and higher
temperatures, marked by viscous homogeneous flow, typi-
cally lead to more ductile metallic glasses.
3
,
21
23
Plasticity in BMGs can be achieved through impeding
shear band propagation,
6
,
7
and plasticity in nano MGs
emerges due to size reduction.
9
,
10
Both of these separate yet
related mechanisms can be utilized in conjunction by using
an architectural approach to material design. For example,
nano-sized MG heterostructures, or nanopores, may be able
to exploit both bulk and nano-scale plasticity mechanisms to
suppress shear banding as well as impede the propagation of
existing shear bands, and architected MG nanolattices can
utilize both structural and material effects to fill untouched
regions of the material design space.
37
39
A mastery of engi-
neered hierarchy in material microstructures might one day
allow us to make ductile metallic glasses that both deform
and harden like steels and possess superior strength and
stiffness.
The authors acknowledge summer students Boyu Fan
and Timothy Tsang for their help with electroplating. The
authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Basic Energy
Sciences, and NASA’s Space Technology Research Grant
Programs through JRG’s Early Career grant. The authors also
acknowledge support and infrastructure provided by the Kavli
Nanoscience Institute (KNI) at Caltech. All computations
were carried out on the SHC computers (Caltech Center for
Advanced Computing Research) provided by the Department
of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration PSAAP
project at Caltech (DE-FC52-08NA28613) and by the NSF
DMR-0520565 CSEM computer cluster. This material is
based upon work supported by the National Science
Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No.
DGE-1144469. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or
recommendations expressed in the material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.
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