Slip avalanche in nanoscratching of metallic glasses

Slip avalanches, similar to discrete earthquake events, of Zr-, Co-, and Ce-based metallic glasses during nanoscratching were investigated. Differing from the conventional continuum approach, mean-field theory, which is an inherently-discrete model, was applied to analytically compute intermittent slip avalanches. Mean-field theory was first connected with the potential energy barrier and concentration of free volume in order to study the stick-slip behavior. The results suggest that the motion behavior of free volume affects the critical slip avalanche size.