Science Daily November 4, 2022 Microscopic properties of glasses largely differ from that of the bulk material. Researchers in Germany experimentally investigated the surface of a two-dimensional glass as a function of the effective temperature. They used colloidal suspension of micron-sized particles interacting via tunable critical Casimir forces to a free surface. They observed surface melting of the glass. However, underneath they found a region with bulk density but much faster particle dynamics. which resulted from connected clusters of highly mobile particles which are formed near the surface and deeply percolate into the underlying material. Because its thickness can reach […]
Tag Archives: Glass properties
Scientists identify liquid-like atoms in densely packed solid glasses
Nanowerk August 22, 2022 Extensive studies on the structure and relaxation dynamics of glasses have constructed the current classical picture: glasses consist of some ‘soft zones’ of loosely bound atoms embedded in a tightly bound atomic matrix. Recent experiments have found an additional fast process in the relaxation spectra, but the underlying physics of this process remains unclear. Researchers in China combined extensive dynamic experiments and computer simulations and found that the fast relaxation is associated with string-like diffusion of liquid-like atoms, which are inherited from the high-temperature liquids. Even at room temperature, some atoms in dense-packed metallic glasses can […]