Derivation of the Johnson-Samwer $T^{(2/3)}$ Temperature Dependence of the Yield Strain in Metallic Glasses

Abstract

Metallic Glasses are prone to fail mechanically via a shear-banding instability. In a remarkable paper Johnson and Samwer demonstrated that this failure enjoys a high degree of universality in the sense that a large group of metallic glasses appears to possess a yield-strain that decreases with temperature following a $-T^{2/3}$ law up to logarithmic corrections. In this Letter we offer a theoretical derivation of this law. We show that our formula fits very well simulational data on typical amorphous solids.