A mechanism of internal friction in metallic glasses is developed and adopted to analyze the results measured in the bulk ${\mathrm{Zr}}_{65}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{17.5}{\mathrm{Ni}}_{10}{\mathrm{Al}}_{7.5}$ metallic glass. A kink of internal friction is observed near the calorimetric glass transition. The nonlinear relation between the internal friction and frequencies is observed. The obtained activation energies for the relaxation in glassy state $\left(1.7\mathrm{eV}\right)$ and supercooled liquid state $\left(5.2\mathrm{eV}\right)$ suggest that the relaxation should be mainly controlled by the motion of a single atom in the glassy state, while by collective motion of atoms in the supercooled liquid state. The nonlinear relation between the internal friction and frequencies should be mainly caused by the distribution of microscopic relaxation parameters. The effects of annealing on relaxation parameters are also observed and discussed.

• Received 26 July 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.184208