TY - JOUR A1 - Chang, Yen-Ting A1 - Sharda, Abhi A1 - Rosalie, Julian M. A1 - Maaß, Robert A1 - Charpagne, Marie A. T1 - A bcc refractory high-entropy alloy: the ideal case of smooth plastic flow N2 - Single crystalline metals exhibit correlated dislocation dynamics, irrespective of lattice system. This collective evolution of dislocation structures is intermittent and scale-free, implying divergent length scales that play a critical role in failure initiation and therefore microstructural design. Here we report on a HfNbTaTiZr refractory high-entropy alloy, that lacks criticality in the collective dislocation response. This unusual behaviour manifests itself in almost quenched-out microplastic stress-strain fluctuations and sluggish dislocation avalanching, otherwise only seen in complex engineering alloys. These findings demonstrate how the high-entropy paradigm can serve as a role model to effectively suppress unwanted plastic fluctuations in metals deformation. KW - Plasticity KW - Dislocations KW - Avalanches KW - Refractory high-entropy alloys PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-630241 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/21663831.2025.2497860 SN - 2166-3831 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Taylor & Francis Group AN - OPUS4-63024 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Qu, R. A1 - Maaß, Robert A1 - Liu, Z. A1 - Tönnies, D. A1 - Tian, L. A1 - Ritchie, R. A1 - Zhang, Z. A1 - Volkert, A. T1 - Flaw-insentive fracture of a micrometer-sized brittle metallic glass N2 - Brittle materials, such as oxide glasses, are usually very sensitive to flaws, giving rise to a macroscopic fracture strength that is much lower than that predicted by theory. The same applies to metallic glasses (MGs), with the important difference that these glasses can exhibit certain plastic strain prior to catas- trophic failure. Here we consider the strongest metallic alloy known, a ternary Co 55 Ta 10 B 35 MG. We show that this macroscopically brittle glass is flaw-insensitive at the micrometer scale. This discovery emerges when testing pre-cracked specimens with self-similar geometries, where the fracture stress does not de- crease with increasing pre-crack size. The fracture toughness of this ultra-strong glassy alloy is further shown to increase with increasing sample size. Both these findings deviate from our classical under- standing of fracture mechanics, and are attributed to a transition from toughness-controlled to strength- controlled fracture below a critical sample size. KW - Metallic glass KW - Fracture toughness KW - Size effect KW - Small-scale PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2021.117219 VL - 218 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-53097 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Structural dynamics in metallic glasses due to Thermal and Mechanical Stress N2 - This talk addresses aging induced property changes of metallic glasses. Priority is given thermally and mechanically induced structural changes, of which the time-dependent dynamics is tracked using coherent scattering. Strong intermittency is observed and accelerated transport is seen at the smallest applied stresses. These findings have significant implications for how metallic glass components respond in realistic service conditions. T2 - Seminar Universität Münster 2020 CY - Münster, Germany DA - 01.12.2020 KW - Metallic glasses KW - Structure PY - 2020 AN - OPUS4-60714 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Liu, C. A1 - Ikeda, Yuki A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Strain-dependent shear-band structure in a Zr-based bulk metallic glass N2 - This work presents strong evidence for structural damage accumulation as a function of shear strain admitted by shear bands in a Zr-based bulk metallic glass. Analyzing the shear-band structure of shear- band segments that experienced shear strains covering four orders of magnitude with high-angle annular dark field transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) reveals strongly scattered data with on overall trend of increasing local volume dilatation with increasing shear strain. Locally, however, a variety of trends is observed, which underlines the strong heterogeneity of structural damage in shear bands in metallic glasses. KW - Transmission electron microscopy KW - Metallic glass KW - Shear bands KW - Shear-band structure KW - Shear strain PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2020.08.030 VL - 190 SP - 75 EP - 79 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-52454 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - 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 -