The role of configurational disorder on plastic and dynamic deformation in Cu(64)Zr(36) metallic glasses: A molecular dynamics analysis

The varying degrees of configurational disorder in metallic glasses are investigated quantitatively by molecular dynamics studies. A parameter, the quasi-nearest atom, is used to characterize the configurational disorder in metallic glasses. Our observations suggest configurational disorder play a role in structural heterogeneity, plasticity and dynamic relaxations in metallic glasses. The broad configurational disorder regions distribution is the indicator of abundant potential deformation units and relaxations. Plastic flow, as well as relaxation, is believed to start at configurational disorder regions. The width of the shear bands and dynamic relaxations can then be regulated by the degree of configurational disorder regions in metallic glasses.