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 - TY - JOUR A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Das, Amlan A1 - Rashidi, Reza A1 - Dufresne, Eric A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Metallic glasses: Elastically stiff yet flowing at any stress N2 - Crystalline solids have a minimum stress needed to displace atoms or to move defects. This stress defines the true elastic limit and is generally a sizeable share of the macroscopic yield stress. Here we demonstrate that a metallic glass, an amorphous solid with a yield stress in the giga-pascal regime, lacks such a true microscopic elastic limit. Leveraging in-situ coherent x-ray scattering, we uncover a strongly accelerated atomic-scale transport upon the application of a stress as small as 0.005 times the yield stress. With increasing stress levels, the distribution of structural relaxation times changes from compressed exponential to simple exponential form, revealing a stress–temperature equivalence in the time-scale domain. These findings strongly promote a microstructurally heterogeneous picture of metallic glasses, in which a part of the amorphous microstructure controls macroscopic yielding whereas another part admits microplastic flow at any stress. KW - Metallic glasses KW - Microstructure PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-624530 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2024.11.015 VL - 82 SP - 92 EP - 98 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-62453 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fareed, Adnan A1 - Rosalie, Julian A1 - Kar, Satyakam A1 - Fähler, Sebastian A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Small-scale functional fatigue of a Ni-Mn-Ga Heusler alloy N2 - Functional fatigue of shape-memory alloys is a considerable threat to the reliable service of actuation devices. Here, we demonstrate the essentially degradation-free cyclic phase-transformation behavior of Ni-Mn-Ga microcrystals up to one million stress-driven superelastic cycles. Cyclic dissipation amounts to about 1/5 of the bulk counterpart and remains unaffected during cycling, even after the introduction of dislocation structures via plastic straining. Plastic yielding and the transformation stress largely exceed the known bulk values. However, the transformation-stress is found to depend on plastic pre-straining, which suggests that the size-affected transformation stress is sensitive to the initial defect structure and that it can be tuned by a targeted introduction of dislocations. These findings demonstrate the high suitability of Ni-Mn-Ga as a robust shape-memory alloy in small-scale functional device engineering. KW - Superelasticity KW - Shape-memory alloys KW - Functional fatigue KW - Ni-Mn-Ga PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-600695 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2024.119988 VL - 274 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-60069 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Das, Amlan A1 - Dufresne, Eric A1 - Derlet, Peter M. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Intermittent cluster dynamics and temporal fractional diffusion in a bulk metallic glass N2 - Glassy solids evolve towards lower-energy structural states by physical aging. This can be characterized by structural relaxation times, the assessment of which is essential for understanding the glass’ time-dependent property changes. Conducted over short times, a continuous increase of relaxation times with time is seen, suggesting a time-dependent dissipative transport mechanism. By focusing on micro-structural rearrangements at the atomic-scale, we demonstrate the emergence of sub-diffusive anomalous transport and therefore temporal fractional diffusion in a metallic glass, which we track via coherent x-ray scattering conducted over more than 300,000 s. At the longest probed decorrelation times, a transition from classical stretched exponential to a power-law behavior occurs, which in concert with atomistic simulations reveals collective and intermittent atomic motion. Our observations give a physical basis for classical stretched exponential relaxation behavior, uncover a new power-law governed collective transport regime for metallic glasses at long and practically relevant time-scales, and demonstrate a rich and highly non-monotonous aging response in a glassy solid, thereby challenging the common framework of homogeneous aging and atomic scale diffusion. KW - Glassy solids KW - Fractional diffusion KW - Coherent x-ray scattering PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-608015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50758-3 VL - 15 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-60801 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fareed, Adnan A1 - Rosalie, Julian A1 - Kumar, Sourabh A1 - Kar, S. A1 - Hickel, Tilmann A1 - Fähler, S. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Constrained incipient phase transformation in Ni-Mn-Ga films: A small-scale design challenge N2 - Ni-Mn-Ga shape-memory alloys are promising candidates for large strain actuation and magnetocaloric cooling devices. In view of potential small-scale applications, we probe here nanomechanically the stress-induced austenite–martensite transition in single crystalline austenitic thin films as a function of temperature. In 0.5 μm thin films, a marked incipient phase transformation to martensite is observed during nanoindentation, leaving behind pockets of residual martensite after unloading. These nanomechanical instabilities occur irrespective of deformation rate and temperature, are Weibull distributed, and reveal large spatial variations in transformation stress. In contrast, at a larger film thickness of 2 μm fully reversible transformations occur, and mechanical loading remains entirely smooth. Ab-initio simulations demonstrate how an in-plane constraint can considerably increase the martensitic transformation stress, explaining the thickness-dependent nanomechanical behavior. These findings for a shape-memory Heusler alloy give insights into how reduced dimensions and constraints can lead to unexpectedly large transformation stresses that need to be considered in small-scale actuation design. KW - Shape-memory alloys KW - Nanoindentation KW - Incipient plasticity KW - NiMaGa PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-581422 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2023.112259 VL - 233 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-58142 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wang, Zengquan A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Derlet, Peter M. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Atomic cluster dynamics causes intermittent aging of metallic glasses N2 - In the past two decades, numerous relaxation or physical aging experiments of metallic glasses have revealed signatures of intermittent atomic-scale processes. Revealed via intensity cross-correlations from coherent scattering using X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS), the observed abrupt changes in the time-domain of atomic motion does not fit the picture of gradual slowing down of relaxation times and their origin continues to remain unclear. Using a binary Lennard-Jones model glass subjected to microsecond-long isotherms, we show here that temporally and spatially heterogeneous atomic-cluster activity at different length-scales drive the emergence of highly non-monotonous intensity cross-correlations. The simulated XPCS experiments reveal a variety of time-dependent intensity-cross correlations that, depending on both the structural evolution and the 𝑞-space sampling, give detailed insights into the possible structural origins of intermittent aging measured with XPCS. KW - Metallic glasses KW - Aging KW - Molecular dynamics KW - XPCS PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-595415 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2024.119730 SN - 1359-6454 VL - 267 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Elsevier B.V. CY - Amsterdam, Niederlande AN - OPUS4-59541 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fantin, Andrea A1 - Manzoni, Anna Maria A1 - Springer, H. A1 - Darvishi Kamachali, Reza A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Local lattice distortions and chemical short-range order in MoNbTaW N2 - Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) conducted on an equiatomic MoNbTaW bcc medium-entropy alloy that was annealed at 2273 K reveals unexpectedly small 1st and 2nd shell element-specific lattice distortions. An experimental size-mismatch parameter, δexp, is determined to be ca. 50% lower than the corresponding calculated value. Around W, short-range order (SRO) preferring 4d elements in the 1st and 2nd shells persists. A Nb-W ordering is found, which is reminiscent of ordering emerging at lower temperatures in the B2(Mo,W;Ta,Nb)- and B32(Nb,W)-phases. With high-temperature ordering preferences in fcc also foreshadowing low-temperature phase, these findings suggest a general feature of high-temperature SRO. KW - High Entropy Alloys KW - Short-range order KW - Lattice distortions KW - EXAFS PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-598164 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/21663831.2024.2326014 SN - 2166-3831 VL - 12 IS - 5 SP - 346 EP - 354 PB - Taylor & Francis AN - OPUS4-59816 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rashidi, Reza A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Rosalie, Julian A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Annealing-dependent elastic microstructure in a Zr-based metallic glass N2 - In this letter, we demonstrate the robust presence of an elastic microstructure in a Zr-based metallic glass (MG) with a characteristic length-scale of the order of 100 nm. This length scale increases systematically towards the MG surface in differently sized casts, whereas thermal relaxation homogenizes both the internal length-scale gradient and the magnitude of the elastic fluctuations. Strongest changes during relaxation arise in the stiffest parts of the elastic microstructure. These findings indicate that the elastic microstructure emerges due to cooling constraints and may therefore be a microstructural manifestation of the internal residual stresses that arise during MG-solidification. KW - Metallic glass KW - Heterogeneity KW - Elastic microstructure KW - Nanoindentation PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-610962 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2024.116380 VL - 255 SP - 1 EP - 5 PB - Elsevier B.V. CY - Amsterdam, Niederlande AN - OPUS4-61096 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rashidi, Reza A1 - Vaerst, Olivia A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Rösner, Harald A1 - Wilde, Gerhard A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Atomic-scale strain fluctuations as an origin for elastic microstructures in metallic glasses N2 - Metallic glasses (MGs) exhibit an elastic microstructure that spans from a few to hundreds of nanometers, the origin of which continues to remain poorly understood. Here we employ four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) on a Zr65Cu25Al10 (at. %) bulk MG. Mapping local diffraction patterns over representative areas also probed elastically with automated nanoindentation, two comparable correlation length scales have been identified. Specifically, local diffraction patterns are analyzed with respect to their ellipticity, revealing systematic fluctuations between positive and negative volumetric strains. A power spectrum analysis of the strain fluctuations returns a dominant length scale of the order of 100 nm, which is very much compatible with what elastic property mapping indicates. Annealing reduces the magnitude of the statistical strain fluctuations, without strongly affecting the associated fluctuation length scale. These findings demonstrate that atomic-scale strains are very likely the origin of the structurally unexpected large elastic fluctuations obtained in nanoscale contact mechanics experiments. KW - Metallic glass KW - 4D-STEM KW - Strain anisotropy KW - Nanoindentation KW - Elastic microstructure KW - Heterogeneities PY - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-654991 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2026.121982 SN - 1359-6454 VL - 308 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Elsevier Inc. AN - OPUS4-65499 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sänger, Johanna C. A1 - Riechers, Birte A1 - Pauw, Brian Richard A1 - Maaß, Robert A1 - Günster, Jens T1 - Microplastic response of 2PP‐printed ceramics N2 - AbstractTwo‐photon polymerization (2PP) additive manufacturing (AM) utilizes feedstocks of ceramic nanoparticles of a few nanometers in diameter, enabling the fabrication of highly accurate technical ceramic design with structural details as small as 500 nm. The performance of these materials is expected to differ from conventional AM ceramics, as nanoparticles and three‐dimensional printing at high resolution introduce new microstructural aspects. This study applies 2PP‐AM of yttria‐stabilized zirconia to investigate the mechanical response behavior under compressive load, probing the influence of smallest structural units induced by the line packing during the printing process, design of sintered microblocks, and sintering temperature and thereby microstructure. We find a dissipative mechanical response enhanced by sintering at lower temperatures than conventional. The pursued 2PP‐AM approach yields a microstructured material with an increased number of grain boundaries that proposedly play a major role in facilitating energy dissipation within the here printed ceramic material. This microplastic response is further triggered by the filigree structures induced by hollow line packing at the order of the critical defect size of ceramics. Together, these unique aspects made accessible by the 2PP‐AM approach contribute to a heterogeneous nano‐ and microstructure, and hint toward opportunities for tailoring the mechanical response in future ceramic applications. KW - Manufacturing KW - Mechanical properties KW - Microstructure KW - Plasticity KW - Zirconia: yttria stabilized PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-605176 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/jace.19849 SN - 1551-2916 VL - 107 IS - 10 SP - 6636 EP - 6645 PB - Wiley CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-60517 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Liquid Metal Embrittlement in High-Strength Steels N2 - One contribution of materials science to energy efficiency is the continuous development of novel high-performance structural materials that push the strength-ductility envelope. A prominent example are modern advanced high-strength steels (AHSSs), which have enabled considerable weight reductions in the automotive sector, thereby enabling greenhouse emission reductions. To protect such advanced alloys from property degradation via corrosion, zinc (Zn) coatings are often applied through galvanization. Whilst protective, a Zn-coating comes with problems – the AHSS substrate becomes susceptible for liquid-metal embrittlement (LME) than can be the origin of significant mechanical property degradation when liquified Zn infiltrates into the steel substrate. Being for from understood, we focus here on non-cracked environments to capture the early stages of LME. This approach revealed the nucleation and growth of nano-scale intermetallic phases inside uncracked GBs (Materials Today Advances 13, 100196, 2022), highlighting the complex multi-phase microstructure developing before cracking occurs. To shed further light on the early stages of LME in AHSSs, we also consider the microstructural evolution of interrupted welds. We discuss our findings in the context of the time-resolved substructure evolution right beneath the interface between the AHSS and the Zn-based coating and track how Zn progressively infiltrates the substrate along phase and grain boundaries. The experimental results are further corroborated with thermodynamic simulations. T2 - ASATM CY - Singapore DA - 10.01.2023 KW - Liquid-metal embrittlement KW - Steels KW - Grain boundaries KW - Micro-cracking PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-60647 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rizzardi, Q. A1 - Derlet, P. M. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Intermittent microplasticity in the presence of a complex microstructure N2 - We demonstrate the gradual shift from scale-free intermittent microplasticity to a scale-dependent behavior via the introduction of a variety of microstructural features within the Al-Cu binary alloy system. As long as the obstacles to dislocation motion remain shearable, the statistics of intermittent microplasticity has fat-tailed contributions. The introduction of incoherent precipitates leads to a complete transition from scale-free powerlaw scaling to an exponential and scale-dependent distribution. These results demonstrate how non-Gaussian interactions survive across different microstructures and further suggest that characteristic microstructural length scales and obstacle pinning-strengths are of secondary importance for the intermittency statistics, as long as dislocations can shear their local environment. KW - Scale-dependent behavior KW - Al-Cu binary alloy system PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.6.073602 SN - 2475-9953 VL - 6 IS - 7 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - American Physical Society AN - OPUS4-55387 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Derlet, P. A1 - Bocquet, H. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Viscosity and transport in a model fragile metallic glass N2 - How thermally activated structural excitations quantitatively mediate transport and microplasticity in a model binary glass at the microsecond timescale is revealed using atomistic simulation. These local excitations, involving a stringlike sequence of atomic displacements, admit a far-field shear-stress signature and underlie the transport of free-volume and bond geometry. Such transport is found to correspond to the Evolution of a disclination network describing the spatial connectivity of topologically distinct bonding environments, demonstrating the important role of geometrical frustration in both glass structure and its underlying dynamics. KW - Metallic glass KW - Viscosity PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.5.125601 SN - 2475-9953 VL - 5 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park, MD AN - OPUS4-54152 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maximilian, Thuy A1 - Spyrantis, Alexander A1 - Böhning, Martin A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Spatially resolved roughness exponent in polymer fracture N2 - The fracture surface of slow and continuous crack propagation during environmental stress cracking of a semicrystalline polyethylene exhibits isotropic roughness exponents at the local scale but resolved across the macroscopic fracture surface a clear position dependence is found. The spatially resolved roughness exponent admits values in the range between 0.1 and 0.4, demonstrating nontrivial exponents in the small length-scale regime. Instead, they vary across the fracture surface according to the stress-state distribution, which suggests that the exponents are intimately linked to the locally dominating dissipation processes during craze cracking. KW - Plasticity KW - Fracture KW - Material failure KW - Mechanical deformation PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.6.L090601 VL - 6 IS - 9 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - American Physical Society CY - USA, Maryland AN - OPUS4-55797 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shimada, Y. A1 - Ikeda, Yuki A1 - Yoshida, K. A1 - Sato, M. A1 - Chen, J. A1 - Du, Y. A1 - Inoue, K. A1 - Maaß, Robert A1 - Nagai, Y. A1 - Konno, T. T1 - In situ thermal annealing transmission electron microscopy of irradiation induced Fe nanoparticle precipitation in Fe–Si alloy N2 - The typical experimental conditions inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM), such as ultra-high vacuum, high-energy electron irradiation, and surface effects of ultrathin TEM specimens, can be the origin of unexpected microstructural changes compared with that of bulk material during in situ thermal-annealing experiments. In this paper, we report on the microstructural changes of a Fe–15%Si alloy during in situ TEM annealing, where, in its bulk form, it exhibits an ordering transformation from D03 to B2 at 650 °C. Using a heating-pot type double tilt holder with a proportional–integral–differential control system, we observed the precipitation of α-Fe both at the sample surface and inside the sample. Surface precipitates formed via surface diffusion are markedly large, several tens of nm, whereas precipitates inside the specimen, which are surrounded by Fe-poor regions, reach a maximum size of 20 nm. This unexpected microstructural evolution could be attributed to vacancies on Si sites, which are induced due to high-energy electron irradiation before heating, as well as enhanced thermal diffusion of Fe atoms. KW - In situ thermal-annealing experiment KW - Microstructural changes of a Fe Si alloy KW - Microstructural evolution PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0070471 SN - 0021-8979 VL - 131 IS - 16 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - AIP Publishing AN - OPUS4-54728 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - The Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM) – 150 Years of Enabling Scientific and Technological Breakthrough N2 - BAM! This issue of Advanced Engineering Materials celebrates 150 years of scientific and technical research at the interface between academia, industry and politics. Rooted in 1871 at the birth of the German Empire and at that time located in simple basements and barracks, the institutional development began around mechanical metallurgy of iron and steel and represents today a diverse portfolio of fore-front research that orients itself along tomorrow's societal challenges and long-term research horizons. KW - 150 Years KW - Adolf Martens PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.202200648 VL - 24 IS - 6 SP - 1 EP - 3 PB - Wiley-VCH GmbH AN - OPUS4-55388 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - On an experimentalist's hard search for free volume N2 - This talk was given in honor of Prof. Frans Spaepen, faculty at Harvard University, at the occasion of his Staudinger Lecture and his honorary doctorate degree reception at ETH Zurich. It covers a 10 year long journey of how an experimentalist probes free-volume effects in metallic glasses. T2 - Symposium in honor of Frans Spaepen Honorary Doctorate ETH Zurich CY - Zurich, Switzerland DA - 08.12.2023 KW - Metallic glass KW - Deformation KW - Shear bands PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-60717 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Probing internal damage in glassy metals N2 - This talk covers strain localization in metallic glasses and how it can be probed non-destructively using acoustic emission and x-ray methods. The results are compared to other methods and contextualized in the context of shear-band dynamics during inhomogeneous flow of metallic glasses. T2 - Seminar Zerstörungsfreie Prüfung TU München 2023 CY - Online meeting DA - 29.06.2023 KW - Metallic glass KW - Deformation KW - Acoustic emission PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-60718 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Temperature-dependent intermittent plasticity of Nb microcrystals N2 - Intermittent microplasticity via dislocation avalanches indicates scale-invariance, which is a paradigm shift away from traditional bulk deformation. Recently, we have developed an experimental method to trace the spatiotemporal dynamics of correlated dislocation activity (dislocation avalanches) in microcrystals (Phys. Rev. Mat. 2 (2018) 120601; Phys. Rev. Mat. 3 (2019) 080601). Here we exploit the temperature sensitive deformation of bcc metals. A marked change of the slip-size distribution is observed in the studied microcrystals, with increasingly small event-sizes dominating with decreasing temperature. This shows how a reduction in thermal energy increasingly suppresses the length-scale of dislocation avalanches, indicating how long-range correlations become gradually limited to the scale of the lattice. Our results further show that the stress-strain response is composed of strain-increments that are either thermally activated or essentially athermal. Temperature-dependent small-scale testing in combination with state-of-the-art discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) simulations of Nb microcrystals are used to reveal these insights. T2 - MS&T20 Virtual CY - Online meeting DA - 02.11.2020 KW - Microcrystals PY - 2020 AN - OPUS4-60700 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Tracing structural dynamics in metallic glasses during cryogenic cycling N2 - Highly unrelaxed structural states of metallic glasses have often advantageous mechanical properties. Since metallic glasses continuously relax with time (age) or inherently are well relaxed after processing, methods to uniformly rejuvenate the material are needed. One approach that has received attention is the so-called cryogenic-cycling method, during which a metallic glass is repeatedly immersed into liquid nitrogen. In some cases, cryogenic cycling is truly efficient in increasing the stored excess enthalpy of metallic glasses, but it does not seem to be universally applicable to all alloys and structural states. The origins for these differences remain unclear due to our limited understanding of the underlying structural evolution. In order to shed more light onto the fundamental structural processes of cryogenic cycling, we pursue in-situ x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) to trace the atomic-scale structural dynamics of a Zr-based metallic glass in two different structural states (ribbon and bulk metallic glass). This method allows calculating the relaxation times as a function of time throughout the thermal cycling. It is found that the investigated glasses exhibit heterogeneous structural dynamics at 300 K, which changes to monotonic aging at 78 K. Cryogenic cycling homogenizes the relaxation time distribution for both structural states. This effect is much more pronounced in the ribbon, which is the only structural state that rejuvenates upon cycling. We furthermore reveal how fast atomic-scale dynamics is correlated with long-time average structural relaxation times irrespective of the state, and that the ribbon exhibits unexpected additional fast atomic-scale relaxation in comparison to the plate material. Overall, a picture emerges that points towards heterogeneities in fictive temperature as a requirement for cryogenic energy storage. T2 - MRS Fall 2020 - Invited Talk CY - Boston, MA, USA DA - 27.11.2020 KW - Relaxation metallic glasses PY - 2020 AN - OPUS4-59542 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Das, A. A1 - Dufresne, E.M. A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Structural dynamics and rejuvenation during cryogenic cycling in a Zr-based metallic glass N2 - Subjecting metallic glasses repeatedly to liquid nitrogen temperature has become a popular method to homogeneously rejuvenate the material. Here we reveal the atomic-scale structural dynamics using in- situ x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) during and after cryogenic cycling of a Zr-based metallic glass in two structural states (plate and ribbon). Heterogeneous structural dynamics is observed at 300 K that changes to monotonic aging at 78 K. It is found that cryogenic cycling homogenizes the relaxation time distribution. This effect is much more pronounced in the ribbon, which is the only structural state that rejuvenates upon cycling. We furthermore reveal how fast atomic-scale dynamics is correlated with longtime structural relaxation times irrespective of the structural state, and that the ribbon exhibits unexpected additional fast atomic-scale relaxation in comparison to the plate material. A structural picture emerges that points towards heterogeneities in the fictive temperature as a requirement for cryogenic energy storage. KW - Structural dynamics KW - Metallic glass KW - Relaxation KW - Rejuvenation KW - Cryogenic cycling PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2020.06.063 SN - 1359-6454 VL - 196 SP - 723 EP - 732 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-51311 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -