Dynamical theory of shear bands in structural glasses

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1620399114
• Publication Date: 2017-01-21T02:50:57Z
• Authors: Apiwat Wisitsorasak; Peter G. Wolynes
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

Significance When glasses are under imposed stresses or strains, they are subject to plastic deformation. Unlike their crystal counterparts, shear within the glasses localizes in thin bands, known as shear bands. Forming the shear bands can lead to structural failure of the whole sample and prevent using glasses as structural materials. In this work, we show how shear bands arise dynamically by the coupling of activated dynamics of configurationally rearranging regions with elastic strain transport. This result also explains the non-Newtonian flow of glasses.