Atomistic modeling shows that the trigger consists of only a few highly localized atoms. In stark contrast to prior expectations, the size of the trigger is independent of the system’s overall stabilities and mechanical properties. The manners of organization between the triggers are sensitively related to the materials’ processing conditions. The distributions of the triggers are very dense in a system that underwent a fast cooling history, while relatively sparse in a more slowly quenched system. The different organizations of microscopic triggers naturally build up different patterns of potential energy landscapes at larger scales, leading to the different macroscopic properties observed in experiments.
Yue Fan, Takuya Iwashita, and Takeshi Egami, “How thermally activated deformation starts in metallic glasses,” Nature Communications 5, 5083 (2014). DOI:10.1038/ncomms6083
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