Radial dependence of thermal, structural and micro deformation characteristics in Cu-Zr-Al bulk metallic glass subjected to high pressure torsion

Disk of a Cu38Zr54Al8 bulk metallic glass was subjected to severe plastic deformation by high pressure torsion up to 25 revolutions. X-ray diffraction was utilized to investigate the microstructure of the deformed sample, while the thermal behavior of the glass was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry. To examine the effect of plastic straining on structural changes, micropillars were fabricated on the cross-section of the disk along the radius at specific locations, i.e. center, half radius and perimeter. Compression tests of these micropillars were conducted in a scanning electron microscope with simultaneous recording of continuous acoustic emissions. Present paper captures the effect of competition between thermal relaxation and deformation induced structural changes. Specifically, probability distributions were constructed for a series of acoustic emission events, revealing that the occurrence of acoustic emission bursts at larger deformations is in correlation with the shift of the X-ray diffraction halos and change in thermal characteristics. Accordingly, a transition was identified from random to correlated acoustic emission behavior parallel with a progressive increase in the accumulation of excess free volume from negative to positive values.