Dynamic correlation between the flow units of supercooled metallic liquid

In contrast to the nano-sized shear bands in metallic glasses at room temperature, a millimeter-sized shear band is observed in the flow of supercooled metallic liquid. To understand the precipitation of the observed millimeter-sized shear band, an empirical approach to characterize the dynamic correlation between the flow units is proposed based on the transient mechanical response in the flow of supercooled metallic liquid. The characterized dynamic correlation well reproduces the staged-feature of the Van Hove's self-correlation function and explains the precipitation of shear band. Besides, for the dominant dynamic correlation approaching the glass transition temperature T-g, glass transition is suggested to be more than frozen. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.