Research Projects

Amorphous solids, intrinsically disordered and part of our daily lives and nature, are crucial for various applications and natural phenomena. The physical origin of these structures remains a significant challenge, as they respond to external mechanical perturbations. In hard amorphous materials, the yielding upon increasing stress leads to catastrophic failure via fracture, which can result in complete disintegration. Experiments have revealed that this failure in hard amorphous solids originates from the formation of micro-cavities that emerge during the deformation process, which often become the sources for subsequent fracture. Developing a detailed microscopic theoretical insight into cavity formation leading to fracture is vital, but currently lacking. To address this issue, researchers propose investigating cavity formation leading to fracture in model amorphous solids using diverse numerical techniques. This involves studying the properties of the underlying high-dimensional complex potential energy landscape characteristic to amorphous systems, in the density regime where cavitation occurs. The objective is to identify local and non-local processes that build up towards the formation of cavities when the amorphous solid is mechanically deformed, while surfing the potential energy landscape. This knowledge will be relevant for understanding the physics of cavity formation during thermomechanical processes. Additionally, the researchers plan to study the phenomenon in the presence of finite temperatures to delineate the interplay between thermal and mechanical noises.