Structural transformation and localization during simulated nanoindentation of a noncrystalline metal film

A simulation study demonstrates that localization can arise as the result of the breakdown of stable quasicrystal-like atomic configurations. Samples produced at elevated quench rates and via more energetic processes contain a lower fraction of such configurations and exhibit significantly less pronounced localization and shorter spacing between bands. In the samples produced by the lowest quench rates, localization is accompanied by the amorphization of material with initially quasicrystal-like medium range order. This result is of particular significance in light of recent experimental evidence of local quasicrystal order in the most stable of the bulk metallic glasses. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.