title: Deformation-induced localized solid-state amorphization in nanocrystalline nickel.
abstract: Although amorphous structures have been widely obtained in various multi-component metallic alloys, amorphization in pure metals has seldom been observed and remains a long-standing scientific curiosity and technological interest. Here we present experimental evidence of localized solid-state amorphization in bulk nanocrystalline nickel introduced by quasi-static compression at room temperature. High-resolution electron microscope observations illustrate that nano-scale amorphous structures present at the regions where severe deformation occurred, e.g. along crack paths or surrounding nano-voids. These findings have indicated that nanocrystalline structures are highly desirable for promoting solid-state amorphization, which may provide new insights for understanding the nature of the crystalline-to-amorphous transformation and suggested a potential method to produce elemental metallic glasses that have hardly been available hitherto through rapid solidification.
authors: Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China.
authors: Shuang
authors: S
authors: Han
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Zhao
authors: Qing
authors: Q
authors: Jiang
authors: Jianshe
authors: J
authors: Lian