Dynamic heterogeneity and mechanical relaxation of Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 high-entropy metallic glass probed by quasi-elastic neutron scattering and stress relaxation

Heterogeneity is an intrinsic property of metallic glasses (MGs) and is closely related to their physical properties. Relaxation dynamics provides a powerful approach to understanding the heterogeneity of MGs. State-of-the-art quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and stress relaxation are used to study the atomic relaxation dynamics, dynamic heterogeneity, diffusion coefficients and mechanical relaxation of Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 high-entropy metallic glass (HE-MG). The dynamic susceptibility derived from the QENS self-intermediate scattering func-tion was used to evaluate the presence of dynamic heterogeneity, which increases gradually with decreasing temperature. The average self-diffusion coefficient of Ni and Ti atoms in the Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 HE-MG melt is much higher than that in the Ti13.8Zr41.2Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 Vit1 MG melt. The Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 HE-MG melt has higher atomic mobility with respect to the Vit1 MG melt. In addition, the activation energy for crystallization of the Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 HE-MG is considerably larger than that of the Vit1 MG. In the stress relaxation test, both Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 HE-MG and Vit1 MG exhibit a relaxation decoupling phenomenon, indicating a two-step relaxation process. The slow and fast relaxation processes of the two alloy ribbons have a stretched expo-nential decay. At the measured temperatures, the relaxation times for both of the relaxation processes for the Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 HE-MG are larger than those for the Vit1 MG, meaning that the Ti20Zr20Cu20Ni20Be20 ribbon has a slower stress decay. This in-depth investigation will improve our understanding of the intrinsic heterogeneity and mechanical relaxation mechanism in HE-MG.