Finite-Disorder Critical Point in the Brittle-to-Ductile Transition of Amorphous Solids in the Presence of Particle Pinning

Using particle based simulation of a model glass former, we demonstrate a transition from brittle yielding to ductile yielding in amorphous solids by introducing quenched disorder in the form of randomly pinned particles. The well-annealed samples, which exhibit brittle yielding, undergo a transition to increasingly ductile yielding with increasing pinning concentrations while exhibiting an enhanced stress overshoot. Extensive finite size analysis is performed to demonstrate the critical nature of the transition at a finite pinning concentration and the various scaling exponents obtained are found to be in good agreement with the reported values for the random field Ising model universality class. Finally, we establish a connection between inherent disorder strength of amorphous solids that controls the nature of the yielding and quenched disorder strength due to particle pinning.