Department of Metal Physics

he Department´s research activities focus on the linkage between the structures and properties of metallic materials. Metastable amorphous metallic materials, typically prepared by rapid cooling of the hot melt, were discovered in the 1960s. Since then, they have progressively become the subject of intense interest for physicists, technologists, development and construction workers. Currently the Department´s main research area is the study of mechanical properties, plastic and inelastic deformation, fracturing processes and stability of amorphous metallic materials prepared by rapid cooling. The methods of fractographic analysisand quantitative statistical fractography are used in the study of fracture surfaces in amorphous metals, the shape of thin ribbons and bulk alloys breaking at a wide range of temperatures, and deformation speed under various types of straining. The processes of formation and extension of unstable fission in amorphous metal structure are investigated by mechanical testing of amorphous metallic materials at temperatures above 4.2 K and by the application of linear fracture mechanics methods. The Department also studies the homogeneous plastic deformation of amorphous metal structure and properties of deformation defects by watching the processes of inelastic deformation and flowing under the influence of mechanical pressure, and by analyzing these processes using numerical methods presuming the existence of an activation energy spectrum of thermally-activated processes. Nanocrystalline materials form a particular group of metallic materials with structural states considerably distant from equilibrium state. The Department studies fracture regularities in these materials. Their structural stability is explored using thermal analysis methods. The study of coherence between the properties of crystalline materials and their structure concentrates mainly on the specification of structure based on the results of neutron and X-ray diffraction experiments.

    In studying these issues the Department has developed active and long-term cooperation with the B. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov (Ukraine), Voronezh State Technical University (Russian Federation) and the University of Groningen (Netherlands).

Fractures in amorphous metals detected by means of scanning electron microscope