Cr-based bulk metallic glasses with ultrahigh hardness

Abstract

This letter reports quaternary Cr-Co-Nb-B bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) with ultrahigh hardness and Young's moduli. Especially, Cr55Co24Nb7B14 BMG exhibits ultrahigh Vickers hardness and Young's modulus of 1605 and 278 GPa, respectively, and the highest specific Young's modulus of 37.0 × 106 N m/kg among all the developed BMGs so far. It is considered that the high hardness and Young's moduli for this kind of BMGs are intrinsically attributed to the strong interactions between metallic constituent elements and B.