TY - JOUR A1 - Chen, Yu A1 - Bo, Zhen-Xing A1 - Zhou, Hong Bo A1 - Sun, Bao-An A1 - Sun, Yong Hao A1 - Maaß, Robert A1 - Wang, Wei Hua T1 - Nanoindentation reveals universal scaling of pop-in plasticity in metallic glasses N2 - Plastic flow of metallic glasses proceeds intermittently in the inhomogeneous deformation regime. Mediated via shear bands, quasi-static straining gives rise to plastic instabilities that are measured as abrupt displacement bursts or pop-ins. The latter is a well-known feature in nanoindentation, where its first occurrence probes the critical and site-specific stress of nano-scale incipient shear deformation. Here we show that the statistical distribution of the stress and magnitude of the first shear instability, as well as its successive higher-order events, universally follow Weibull statistics across ten different metallic glasses. This indicates a fundamentally identical plastic process across glass-forming alloys and progressing deformation that is governed by a weakest-link phenomenon. This finding stands in strong contrast to crystalline alloys, where both defect nucleation and defect-structure evolution control shear instabilities and depend on the deformation history. KW - Metallic glasses KW - Nanoindentation KW - Intermittent flow KW - Pop-ins KW - Weibull distribution PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-624772 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2025.116549 VL - 259 SP - 1 EP - 5 PB - Elsevier Inc. AN - OPUS4-62477 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -