Despite its significance in fundamentally understanding mechanical behaviors of metallic glasses, the effect of elastic heterogeneity on plastic deformation and thereby nanotribological behavior of metallic glass thin films (MGTFs) remains an open question. By a combination of nano-scratch, nano-DMA and nanoindentation tests, we have investigated in the present work the room-temperature inhomogeneous plastic deformation behavior and nanotribological properties of Cu–Zr based MGTFs obtained by magnetron sputtering with different substrate temperatures. It is revealed that while the studied MGTF experiences a moderate rise of both hardness and Young's modulus with the elevating substrate temperature from 300 K to 473 K, its wear resistance significantly increases during the nano-scratch under a ramping load. More interestingly, through systematically studying the serration dynamics during the nano-scratch for MGTFs with different thermal history, we found that the increase of critical length scale for shear banding, which is well accompanied by the reduction of nano-scale elastic heterogeneity, tends to make shear banding more difficult in the amorphous structure, and thus enhance the wear resistance of the tested MGTFs. The current findings may provide a useful guidance to develop MGTFs with a superior mechanical and tribological properties via tuning their nanoscale elastic heterogeneity.

尽管从根本上理解金属玻璃的机械行为具有重要意义，但是弹性异质性对塑性变形的影响以及金属玻璃薄膜（MGTFs）的纳米摩擦学行为仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。通过纳米划痕，纳米DMA和纳米压痕测试的组合，我们在本工作中研究了在不同基板温度下通过磁控溅射获得的基于Cu-Zr的MGTF的室温非均质塑性变形行为和纳米摩擦学性质。结果表明，随着基底温度从300 K升高到473 K，所研究的MGTF的硬度和杨氏模量都有适度的提高，而在纳米载荷下，纳米刮擦的耐磨性显着提高。更有趣的是，通过系统研究不同热历史的MGTF的纳米划痕过程中的锯齿动力学，我们发现剪切带的临界长度尺度的增加，伴随着纳米尺度弹性非均质性的降低，倾向于使剪切带无定形结构的制造难度更大，因此提高了测试的MGTF的耐磨性。当前的发现可能为通过调节其纳米级弹性异质性开发具有优异的机械和摩擦学性能的MGTF提供有用的指导。倾向于使无定形结构中的剪切带更加困难，并因此提高了测试的MGTF的耐磨性。当前的发现可能为通过调节其纳米级弹性异质性开发具有优良机械和摩擦学性能的MGTF提供有用的指导。倾向于使无定形结构中的剪切带更加困难，并因此提高了测试的MGTF的耐磨性。当前的发现可能为通过调节其纳米级弹性异质性开发具有优良机械和摩擦学性能的MGTF提供有用的指导。