Designing plastic Cu-based bulk metallic glass via minor addition of nickel

• Monolithic Cu54.5Zr37Ti8Ni0.5 BMG has excellent plasticity of more than 26%.
• The special features of Ni with Cu cause a large amount of free volume in the BMG.
• The collocation of alloying elements is crucial for designing plastic BMGs.

A monolithic Cu-based bulk metallic glass (BMG), having plastic strain of more than 26% together with fracture strength of 2471 MPa, was fabricated by copper mold casting. This plastic strain has never seen in monolithic Cu-based BMGs containing more than 50 at.% Cu. The excellent plasticity is attributed to a large amount of free volume induced by minor addition of nickel, resulting in multiple shear bands formation, branching and interaction.

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