Investigations of the mechanical properties of nanoimprinted amorphous Ni–Zr alloys utilizing the molecular dynamics simulation

•The mechanical properties of amorphous Ni–Zr alloys are studied.•The deformation mechanism and temperature of amorphous Ni–Zr alloys during the nanoimprinting process are studied.•The effect of recovery ratio on amorphous Ni–Zr alloys is studied.

In this work, the molecular dynamics simulation is used to investigate the mechanical behavior of amorphous Ni–Zr alloys during the nanoimprinting process. These simulations include the alloy composition, working temperature, radial distribution function, and the recovery ratio. It has been shown that the hardness and the reduced modulus of amorphous Ni–Zr alloy grow with an increasing proportion of Zr atoms. Moreover, due to the kinetic energy of atoms the deformation degree of amorphous Ni–Zr alloys can be enhanced by using the higher sample temperature. The short-range order of individual fractal-like amorphous Ni–Zr alloy deformation mechanism has been also demonstrated. In addition, it has been shown that the pileup index also increases with temperature, i.e. atoms bonding energy at higher temperatures decreases, resulting in the material softening and the thermal expansion. And, the recovery ratio is found to be the alloy composition loading dependent.