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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.
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.
A giant Zn segregation transition is revealed using CALPHAD-integrated density-based modeling of segregation into Fe grain boundaries (GBs). The results show that above a threshold of only a few atomic percent Zn in the alloy, a substantial amount of up to 60 at.% Zn can segregate to the GB. We found that the amount of segregation abruptly increases with decreasing temperature, while the Zn content in the alloy required for triggering the segregation transition decreases. Direct evidence of the Zn segregation transition is obtained using high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy. Base on the model, we trace the origin of the segregation transition back to the low cohesive energy of Zn and a miscibility gap in Fe-Zn GB, arising from the magnetic ordering effect, which is confirmed by ab-initio calculations. We also show that the massive Zn segregation resulting from the segregation transition greatly assists with liquid wetting and reduces the work of separation along the GB. The current predictions suggest that control over Zn segregation, by both alloy design and optimizing the galvanization and welding processes, may offer preventive strategies against liquid metal embrittlement.
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.
Metallic glasses are known to have a remarkably robust yield strength, admitting Weibull moduli as high as for crystalline engineering alloys. However, their postyielding behavior is strongly varying, with large scatter in both flow stress levels and strains at failure. Using x-ray tomography, we reveal how a strain-dependent internal evolution of shear-band cavities underlies this unpredictable postyielding response.We demonstrate how macroscopic strain softening coincides with the first detection of internal shear-band cavitation. Cavity growth during plastic flow is found to follow a power law, which yields a fractal dimension and a roughness exponent in excellent agreement with self-similar surface properties obtained after fracture. These findings demonstrate how internal microcracking coexists with shear-band plasticity along the plastic part of a stress-strain curve, rationalizing the large variability of plastic flow behavior seen for metallic glasses.
Silicate glass fracture surface energy calculated from crystal structure and bond-energy data
(2023)
We present a novel method to predict the fracture surface energy, γ, of isochemically crystallizing silicate glasses using readily available crystallographic structure data of their crystalline counterpart and tabled diatomic chemical bond energies, D0. The method assumes that γ equals the fracture surface energy of the most likely cleavage plane of the crystal. Calculated values were in excellent agreement with those calculated from glass density, network connectivity and D0 data in earlier work. This finding demonstrates a remarkable equivalence between crystal cleavage planes and glass fracture surfaces.
Advanced experimental and numerical approaches are being developed to
capture the localization of plasticity at the nanometer scale as a function of the multiscale and heterogeneous microstructure present in metallic materials.
These innovative approaches promise new avenues to understand microstructural effects on mechanical properties, accelerate alloy design, and enable more accurate mechanical property prediction. This article provides an overview of emerging approaches with a focus on the localization of plasticity by crystallographic slip. New insights into the mechanisms and mechanics of strain localization are addressed. The consequences of the localization of plasticity by deformation slip for mechanical properties of metallic materials are also detailed.
Magnetic shape memory alloys have been examined intensively due to their multifunctionality and multitude of physical phenomena. For both areas, epitaxial films are promising since the absence of grain boundaries is beneficial for applications in microsystems and they also allow to understand the influence of a reduced dimension on the physical effects. Despite many efforts on epitaxial films, two particular aspects remain open.
First, it is not clear how to keep epitaxial growth up to high film thickness, which is required for most microsystems.
Second, it is unknown how the microstructure of premartensite, a precursor state during the martensitic transformation, manifests in films and differs from that in bulk.
Here, we focus on micrometer-thick austenitic Ni-Mn-Ga films and explain two distinct microstructural features by combining high-resolution electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction methods. First, we identify pyramid-shaped defects, which originate from {1 1 1} growth twinning and cause the breakdown of epitaxial growth. We show that a sufficiently thick Cr buffer layer prevents this breakdown and allows epitaxial growth up to a thickness of at least 4 μm. Second, premartensite exhibits a hierarchical microstructure in epitaxial films. The reduced dimension of films results in variant selection and regions with distinct premartensite variants, unlike its microstructure in bulk.
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.
Metallic glasses (MGs) are known to be structurally heterogeneous at the nanometer (nm) scale. In addition, elastic property mapping has indicated the presence of at least an order-of-magnitude larger length scales, of which the origin continues to remain unknown. Here we demonstrate the existence of an elastic decorrelation length of the order of 100 nm in a Zr-based bulk MG using spatially resolved elastic property mapping via nanoindentation. Since compositional modulations sufficiently large to account for this elastic microstructure were not resolved by analytical scanning-transmission electron microscopy, chemical phase separation such as spinodal decomposition cannot explain their occurrence as previously suggested. Instead, we argue that the revealed long-range elastic modulations stem from structural variations affecting the local density. These emerge during solidification and are strongly influenced by the cooling constraints imposed on bulk MGs during the casting process.