Electrodeposition in bulk metallic glasses

Electrodeposition is a simple and economical method that can be employed for fabricating nanostructured surface coatings and bulk materials. This review presents applications of electrodeposition in the area of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs). BMGs are a key group of materials that have potential for diversified industrial applications; however, they suffer from poor plasticity. It has been shown that geometric confinement of shear bands through electrodeposited surface coatings enhances overall plasticity. The present review frames its objective in this direction. The review starts with a detailed introduction on BMGs and electrodeposition, and then presents various strategies employed to enhance plasticity. Reported works on electrodeposited surface coatings on BMGs for plasticity improvement are covered in Section 2 (reports on electroless coatings are also included). In Section 3 we deal with electrodeposition of BMGs. Potentials for future development are discussed in Section 4. In addition, recent interesting works reported at the interface of electrochemistry and BMGs are presented in Section 5.