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 […]