On the plasticity and inheritance in shear-band-rejuvenated metallic glasses

Abstract

Structural rejuvenation holds promise for enhancing the plastic deformability of metallic glasses. However, whether structural rejuvenation through the introduction of shear bands unequivocally leads to enhanced plasticity remains contentious. Herein, we investigated two metallic glasses with distinct initial energy states: as-cast and well-relaxed. These glasses underwent a 50 % thickness reduction through cold rolling. Cold rolling significantly reduces the plasticity of as-cast glasses but notably enhances plasticity along the rolling direction for annealed glasses. This underscores the dependence of plasticity in processed glasses on both the initial state and shear band distribution. Additionally, it was observed that cold-rolled glasses exhibit plastic anisotropy, and re-vitrified glasses remarkably inherit this behavior. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction analysis further revealed that the transformation from face-shared to edge-shared or vertex-shared medium-range orders plays a significant role in the plastic response of glasses. Our findings suggest that regulating shear band distribution, along with appropriate re-vitrification treatment, provides a promising strategy to tailor the structure and properties of metallic glasses.