Excess Vibrational Density of States and the Brittle to Ductile Transition in Crystalline and Amorphous Solids

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that excess vibrational density of states is a key indicator of ductility in both crystalline and amorphous solids, based on computational deformation experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a universal link between vibrational density of states and ductility across different types of model solids.

Findings

Excess vibrational density of states correlates with ductility.

Both isotropic and directional interaction models show similar trends.

Results suggest experimental verification in colloidal solids is feasible.

Abstract

The conditions which determine whether a material behaves in a brittle or ductile fashion on mechanical loading are still elusive and comprise a topic of active research among materials physicists and engineers. In this study, we present results of {\em in silico} mechanical deformation experiments from two very different model solids in two and three dimensions. The first consists of particles interacting with isotropic potentials and the other has strongly direction dependent interactions. We show that in both cases, the excess vibrational density of states is the fundamental quantity which characterises the ductility of the material. Our results can be checked using careful experiments on colloidal solids.