Inelastic properties of amorphous CuTi

The inelastic properties of Cu50Ti50 amorphous specimens are investigated below 300K using the flexural resonant vibration in the strain amplitude range 10−5 < ϵ < 10−3. With increasing ϵ, the reversible inelastic component ϵi increased at first and tended towards saturation (ϵi, t). The general changes in dϵi/dϵ can well be described by a Gaussian distribution in ϵ, but in the low ϵ range deviations occur on both sides with a complemntary nature. From these results, the number density of deformable sites N(ϵ) in the amorphous structure is surmised to have, in general, a Gaussian distribution in ϵ. These features for dϵi/dϵ remain the same for various temperatures, and ϵi, t increases with decreasing temperature. These facts suggest that atomic rearrangements in deformable sites causing ϵi are athermal phenomena. Both plastic deformation and thermal cyclings modify dϵi/dϵ only in the low ϵ range.