| Metallic glasses often undergo glass transitions at temperature Tg well below their crystallisation temperature Tx and thus possess so-called super-cooled liquid temperature range ΔT = Tx - Tg to which they can be heated in principle without crystallization. Metallic glass heated to its ΔT regime can be pressed onto a warm substrate to engrave selected patterns. The metallic glass surface then takes on a surface pattern that is the negative of that on the substrate. Subsequently the initial pattern on the substrate can be reproduced on a third target surface at room temperature by cold pressing (punching) the negative pattern on the metallic glass surface onto the target surface. We report the transfer of arbitrary motifs initially on WC or Ni hard surfaces onto Al thin foils via creation of the negative of the pattern on a metallic glass stamp used for punching. |
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