Elsevier

Scripta Materialia

Volume 61, Issue 10, November 2009, Pages 974-977
Scripta Materialia

Bonding characteristics and strengthening of CuZr fundamental clusters upon small Al additions from density functional theory calculations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2009.08.008Get rights and content

We report on density functional theory results referring to the bonding characteristics and the strengthening induced by small Al additions in representative icosahedral Cu7Zr6 and rhombic dodecahedral Cu9Zr6 clusters and their interconnections. We found that the presence of Al modifies seriously the interactions with its surroundings, introducing strong covalent-like bonding that may resist strain, thus explaining experimental observations referring to the strengthening effect of metallic glasses upon small Al additions.

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      The presence of a high volume fraction of homogeneously distributed soft regions (red spots in Fig. 7) promotes the activation of a large number of STZs and, hence, a homogeneous distribution of plastic strain resulting in the formation of a highly organized pattern of multiple shear bands, which leads to the observed improved plasticity [13,54,55]. Previous ab-initio computations have shown that Al microalloying of Cu/Zr-based metallic glasses could drastically modify their structure and mechanical properties [56,57]. Small Al additions modify the bonding characteristics of the cluster's atoms and increase the propensity for the formation of a free of bonds plane that could be viewed as analog of a slip plane of the crystalline materials.

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