Paradoxical phenomena between the homogeneous and inhomogeneous deformations of metallic glasses

Experiments in binary alloys demonstrate that metallic glasses exhibiting more plastic strain during homogeneous deformation tend to show lower global plasticity during inhomogeneous deformation. Testing of Cu–Zr binary alloys supports the hypothesis that the formation energy of a shear transformation zone, as extracted from the experimental data, is related to the homogeneous flow rate. We also report the microstructural aspects that control the global plasticity of metallic glasses in the light of structural disordering, softening, and shear localization.