Liquid-like behaviours of metallic glassy nanoparticles at room temperature
Direct atomic-scale observations and measurements on dynamics of amorphous metallic nanoparticles (a-NPs) are challenging owing to the insufficient consciousness to their striking characterizations and the difficulties in technological approaches. In this study, we observe coalescence process of the...
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Published in | Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 1966 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
Nature Publishing Group UK
29.04.2019
Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Direct atomic-scale observations and measurements on dynamics of amorphous metallic nanoparticles (a-NPs) are challenging owing to the insufficient consciousness to their striking characterizations and the difficulties in technological approaches. In this study, we observe coalescence process of the a-NPs at atomic scale. We measure the viscosity of the a-NPs through the particles coalescence by in situ method. We find that the a-NPs have fast dynamics, and the viscosity of the a-NPs exhibits a power law relationship with size of the a-NPs. The a-NPs with sizes smaller than 3 nm are in a supercooled liquid state and exhibit liquid-like behaviours with a decreased viscosity by four orders of magnitude lower than that of bulk glasses. These results reveal the intrinsic flow characteristics of glasses in low demension, and pave a way to understand the liquid-like behaviours of low dimension glass, and are also of key interest to develop size-controlled nanodevices.
Nanoscale materials often exhibit size-dependent behaviour. Here, the authors use electron microscopy to quantitatively study the size-related dynamics of amorphous metallic nanoparticles, finding that particles below a critical size are in a supercooled liquid state at room temperature, with a viscosity much lower than that of bulk glasses. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2041-1723 2041-1723 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-019-09895-3 |