Ductile Ti-based metallic glass spheres

Here the authors have investigated the mechanical responses of Ti40Zr25Ni3Cu12Be20 metallic glassy spheres. Smaller spheres exhibit a near homogeneous deformation behavior, whereas larger spheres display a quasi-brittle feature upon compressive loading. Meanwhile, the nanohardness value decreases with decreasing sample size. The variation in mechanical performance of the glassy spheres of different sizes is interpreted within the framework of free volume theory.