Plasticity of Amorphous Alloys: 1. Homogeneous Deformation

Amorphous alloys, in addition to being promising materials for a variety of practical applications, provide an excellent test bed for evaluating our understanding of the underlying physics on deformation in amorphous solids. Like many amorphous materials, amorphous alloys can exhibit either homogeneous or inhomogeneous deformation depending on the stress level. The mode of deformation has a strong influence on whether the material behavior is classified as ductile or brittle. It was observed that the characteristics of these deformations are largely dependent on the atomic-scale structures of the alloys and determine the amount of the plastic deformation prior to failure. In this study, the structural features that control the homogeneous deformation of amorphous alloys are outlined on the basis on experiments and molecular dynamics simulations.