Unusual room-temperature compressive plasticity in nanocrystal-toughened bulk copper-zirconium glass

Cast Cu50Zr50 alloy rods with a diameter of 1 mm have been found to consist of a glassy phase containing fine crystalline particles with a size of about 5 nm. They have a glass transition temperature T g of 675 K, and a large supercooled-liquid region extending 57 K above T g. The rods exhibit a high yield strength of 1860 MPa and a Young's modulus of 104 GPa. Because they contain a dispersion of embedded nanocrystals, the as-cast bulk metallic glass rods can sustain a compressive plastic strain at room temperature of more than 50%, an exceptional value which is explicable by compensation of any shear softening by nanocrystal coalescence and pinning of shear bands.