Anti-Aging in Ultrastable Metallic Glasses

M. Luttich (1, 2) , Valentina Giordano (3) , Sylvie Le Floch (3) , E. Pineda (4) , F. Zontone (2) , Y. S. Luo (1) , K. Samwer (1) , Béatrice Ruta (3, 2)

1 I. Physikalisches Institut [Göttingen]
2 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
3 ILM - Institut Lumière Matière [Villeurbanne]
4 UPC - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya = Université polytechnique de Catalogne [Barcelona]

As ultrastable metallic glasses (UMGs) are promising candidates to solve the stability issues of conventional metallic glasses, their study is of exceptional interest. By means of x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, we have investigated the stability of UMGs at the atomic level. We find a clear signature of ultrastability at the atomic level that results in slower relaxation dynamics of UMGs with respect to conventional (rapidly quenched) metallic glasses, and in a peculiar acceleration of the dynamics by near T_g annealing. This surprising phenomenon, called here anti-aging, can be understood in the framework of the potential energy landscape. For all samples, the structural relaxation process can be described with a highly compressed shape of the density fluctuations, unaffected by thermal treatments and regardless of the ultrastability of the glass.

Mots clés: Collective dynamics; Glasses; Metallic glasses; Coherent X-ray scattering

Domaines: Chimie; Physique [physics]; Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

M. Luttich, Valentina Giordano, Sylvie Le Floch, E. Pineda, F. Zontone, et al.. Anti-Aging in Ultrastable Metallic Glasses. Physical Review Letters, 2018, 120 (13), pp.135504. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.135504⟩. ⟨hal-02290273⟩