Evaluation of approximate measurements of activation-free-energy spectra of shear transformation zones in metallic glasses

Abstract

For many years, the only experimental activation free energy spectrum for shear transformations in metallic glasses had been obtained by quenching from high temperature during creep, followed by temperature stepping (Argon and Kuo, 1980). We show that the approximation associated with attributing a single activation energy to each temperature leads to an artificial drop in the spectrum at high activation energies. The detailed spectra of potential shear transformation zones we have recently obtained, which exhibit an atomically quantized hierarchy and are monotonic, lead to the same spectrum shape as obtained by Argon and Kuo when the approximation inherent to the temperature stepping method is applied.