Role of thermal history on atomic structure and ductility of ion-irradiated metallic glasses

Maximizing the structural rejuvenation and ductility is one of the most heated debates in the field of metallic glasses (MGs). In this work, molecular dynamics simulation was implemented to model the ion irradiation effects on the Cu60Zr40 MG with different thermal histories and varied structural heterogeneities. The initial results indicated that the performance of an annealing-quench treatment on the MG induces the atomic configurations with different heterogeneities and potential energy values. The subsequent ion irradiation process also demonstrated that an optimized atomic structure was occurred for achieving maximum rejuvenation and ductility in the CuZr glassy alloy. It was unveiled that the intermediate initial heterogeneity provides an efficient pathway for maximizing the atomic rearrangements under the ion irradiation. It was also suggested that the medium population of Cu-centered clusters in the initial state facilitated the atomic rearrangements during the ion irradiation process. The structural characteristics and atomic reconfigurations for attaining the optimum ductility is discussed in details.