Correlation between nanoscale viscoelastic heterogeneous structure and mechanical behaviors in amorphous alloy

<p indent="0mm">Building the intrinsic relationship between microscopic structure and macroscopic physical properties is one of the hot and difficult research topics in the field of amorphous alloys. Due to the characteristics of short-range order and long-range disorder in atomic arrangement and the lack of effective experimental means to observe the atomic arrangement, there is still great controversy about the atomic structure of amorphous alloys. This situation makes it particularly difficult to construct a unified and complete amorphous structure model and determine the constitutive relationship between structure and properties. Recently, many studies have shown that although the atomic structure is unknown, amorphous alloys exhibit significant structural heterogeneity at the nanoscale, which is closely related to macroscopic physical properties. However, there are still many difficulties in quantitatively characterizing structural heterogeneity. Focusing on the nanoscale viscoelastic heterogeneity, this article reviews a series of research progress on the quantitative characterization of nanoscale viscoelastic heterogeneity, as well as on the correlation between nanoscale viscoelastic heterogeneity and various mechanical behaviors in the amorphous alloy. This review will provide useful enlightenment for understanding the intrinsic structural heterogeneity of amorphous alloys and quantitatively regulating their macroscopic mechanical properties.