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Amorphous solids, confined on the nano-scale, exhibit a wealth of novelphenomena yet to be explored. In particular, the response of such solids to amechanical load is not well understood and, as has been demonstratedexperimentally, it differs strongly from bulk samples made of the samematerials. Failure patterns and mechanisms are strongly affected by thegeometry of the confinement and the interplay between interfacial effects inthe sample and the time scale, imposed by an external mechanical field. Here,we present the mechanism of cavity formation in a confined model glass,subjected to expansion with a constant strain rate. This system is studied forvarying geometric aspect ratio and sample size. Our results show that for agiven temperature and straining condition, the sample shows cavitation when theaspect ratio reaches a critical value and below this aspect ratio the samplebreaks by forming a neck. The critical aspect ratio is associated with acritical curvature of the neck that depends on strain rate and temperature. Ifthis critical curvature is exceeded, the free energy of the system is minimizedby the formation of a cavity. Our study reveals a novel mechanism of cavityformation on the nanoscale. This is probably a generic mechanism for material'sfailure in small confined systems under mechanical load.

Geometry-controlled Failure Mechanisms of Amorphous Solids on the Nanoscale