Effects of size on the strength and deformation mechanism in Zr-based metallic glasses

We report results of uniaxial compression tests on Zr₃₅Ti₃₀Co₆Be₂₉ metallic glass nano-pillars with diameters ranging from ∼1.6 μm to ∼100 nm. The tested pillars have nearly vertical sidewalls, with the tapering angle lower than ∼1° (diameter >200 nm) or ∼2° (diameter ∼100 nm), and with a flat pillar top to minimize the artifacts due to imperfect geometry. We report that highly-localized-to-homogeneous deformation mode change occurs at 100 nm diameter, without any change in the yield strength. We also find that yield strength depends on size only down to 800 nm, below which it remains at its maximum value of 2.6 GPa. Quantitative Weibull analysis suggests that the increase in strength cannot be solely attributed to the lower probability of having weak flaws in small samples - most likely there is an additional influence of the sample size on the plastic deformation mechanism.