Tensile behavior of Cu50Zr50 metallic glass nanowire with a B2 crystalline precipitate

A molecular dynamics study of the effect of a single B2-CuZr precipitate on the mechanical properties of Cu50Zr50 metallic glass nanowires is presented. Four different samples are considered: three with a 2, 4 and 6 nm radii precipitate and a precipitate-free sample. These systems are submitted to uniaxial tensile test up to 25% of strain. The interface region between the precipitate and the glass matrix has high local atomic shear strain, activating shear transformation zones, which concentrates in the neighborhood of the precipitate. The plastic regime is dominated by necking, and no localized shear band is observed for the samples with a 4 and 6 nm radii precipitate. In addition, the yield stress decreases as the size of the precipitate increases. Regarding the precipitate structure, no martensitic phase transformation is observed, since neither the shear band hit the precipitate nor the stress provided by the tensile test is enough to initiate the transformation. It is concluded that, in contrast to the case when multiple precipitates are present in the sample, a single precipitate concentrates the shear strain around its surface, eventually causing the failure of the nanowire.