Watch the metallic glass "flowing" at room temperature

Metallic glass in bulk form is known to have superb strength and elastic response but very limited plastic deformation ability. Through machining the metaillinc glass into submicometer pillars, experiment found that metallic glass can actually sustain very large plastic doformation (see attached Figure).  The detail of this finding can be found in our most recent publication: Z. W. Shan et al, Plastic flow and failure resistance of metallic glass: Insight from in situ compression of nanopillars, Phys. Rev. B 77, 155419 (2008) (6 pages). Videos are availabe upon request.