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Herrero C, Berthier L. Direct Numerical Analysis of Dynamic Facilitation in Glass-Forming Liquids. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2024; 132:258201. [PMID: 38996241 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.132.258201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2023] [Accepted: 05/21/2024] [Indexed: 07/14/2024]
Abstract
We propose a computational strategy to quantify the temperature evolution of the timescales and length scales over which dynamic facilitation affects the relaxation dynamics of glass-forming liquids at low temperatures, which requires no assumption about the nature of the dynamics. In two glass models, we find that dynamic facilitation depends strongly on temperature, leading to a subdiffusive spreading of relaxation events which we characterize using a temperature-dependent dynamic exponent. We also establish that this temperature evolution represents a major contribution to the increase of the structural relaxation time.
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2
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Pica Ciamarra M, Ji W, Wyart M. Local vs. cooperative: Unraveling glass transition mechanisms with SEER. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2400611121. [PMID: 38787876 PMCID: PMC11145278 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2400611121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Which phenomenon slows down the dynamics in supercooled liquids and turns them into glasses is a long-standing question of condensed matter. Most popular theories posit that as the temperature decreases, many events must occur in a coordinated fashion on a growing length scale for relaxation to occur. Instead, other approaches consider that local barriers associated with the elementary rearrangement of a few particles or "excitations" govern the dynamics. To resolve this conundrum, our central result is to introduce an algorithm, Systematic Excitation ExtRaction, which can systematically extract hundreds of excitations and their energy from any given configuration. We also provide a measurement of the activation energy, characterizing the liquid dynamics, based on fast quenching and reheating. We use these two methods in a popular liquid model of polydisperse particles. Such polydisperse models are known to capture the hallmarks of the glass transition and can be equilibrated efficiently up to millisecond time scales. The analysis reveals that cooperative effects do not control the fragility of such liquids: the change of energy of local barriers determines the change of activation energy. More generally, these methods can now be used to measure the degree of cooperativity of any liquid model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Massimo Pica Ciamarra
- Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 637371, Singapore
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerce, CNR-SPIN, NapoliI-80126, Italy
| | - Wencheng Ji
- Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot76100, Israel
| | - Matthieu Wyart
- Institute of Physics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, LausanneCH-1015, Switzerland
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3
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Herrero C, Ediger MD, Berthier L. Front propagation in ultrastable glasses is dynamically heterogeneous. J Chem Phys 2023; 159:114504. [PMID: 37724735 DOI: 10.1063/5.0168506] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 08/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Upon heating, ultrastable glassy films transform into liquids via a propagating equilibration front, resembling the heterogeneous melting of crystals. A microscopic understanding of this robust phenomenology is, however, lacking because experimental resolution is limited. We simulate the heterogeneous transformation kinetics of ultrastable configurations prepared using the swap Monte Carlo algorithm, thus allowing a direct comparison with experiments. We resolve the liquid-glass interface both in space and in time as well as the underlying particle motion responsible for its propagation. We perform a detailed statistical analysis of the interface geometry and kinetics over a broad range of temperatures. We show that the dynamic heterogeneity of the bulk liquid is passed on to the front that propagates heterogeneously in space and intermittently in time. This observation allows us to relate the averaged front velocity to the equilibrium diffusion coefficient of the liquid. We suggest that an experimental characterization of the interface geometry during the heterogeneous devitrification of ultrastable glassy films could provide direct experimental access to the long-sought characteristic length scale of dynamic heterogeneity in bulk supercooled liquids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cecilia Herrero
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France
| | - Mark D Ediger
- Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
| | - Ludovic Berthier
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, United Kingdom
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Leoni F, Martelli F, Royall CP, Russo J. Structural Signatures of Ultrastability in a Deposited Glassformer. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2023; 130:198201. [PMID: 37243654 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.130.198201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 04/13/2023] [Indexed: 05/29/2023]
Abstract
Glasses obtained from vapor deposition on a cold substrate have superior thermodynamic and kinetic stability with respect to ordinary glasses. Here we perform molecular dynamics simulations of vapor deposition of a model glassformer and investigate the origin of its high stability compared to that of ordinary glasses. We find that the vapor deposited glass is characterized by locally favored structures (LFSs) whose occurrence correlates with its stability, reaching a maximum at the optimal deposition temperature. The formation of LFSs is enhanced near the free surface, hence supporting the idea that the stability of vapor deposited glasses is connected to the relaxation dynamics at the surface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabio Leoni
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Rome 00185, Italy
| | - Fausto Martelli
- IBM Research Europe, Hartree Centre, Daresbury WA4 4AD, United Kingdom
| | - C Patrick Royall
- Gulliver UMR CNRS 7083, ESPCI Paris, Université PSL, 75005 Paris, France
- School of Chemistry, Cantock's Close, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TS, United Kingdom
- Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1FD, United Kingdom
- H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
| | - John Russo
- Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Rome 00185, Italy
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Zhang Q, Li W, Qiao K, Han Y. Surface premelting and melting of colloidal glasses. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2023; 9:eadf1101. [PMID: 36930717 PMCID: PMC10022898 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf1101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2022] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
The nature of liquid-to-glass transition is a major puzzle in science. A similar challenge exists in glass-to-liquid transition, i.e., glass melting, especially for the poorly investigated surface effects. Here, we assemble colloidal glasses by vapor deposition and melt them by tuning particle attractions. The structural and dynamic parameters saturate at different depths, which define a surface liquid layer and an intermediate glassy layer. The power-law growth of both layers and melting front behaviors at different heating rates are similar to crystal premelting and melting, suggesting that premelting and melting can be generalized to amorphous solids. The measured single-particle kinetics reveal various features and confirm theoretical predictions for glass surface layer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qi Zhang
- Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China
| | - Wei Li
- Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China
| | - Kaiyao Qiao
- Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China
| | - Yilong Han
- Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China
- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen 518057, China
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Nishikawa Y, Ikeda A, Berthier L. Collective dynamics in a glass-former with Mari-Kurchan interactions. J Chem Phys 2022; 156:244503. [DOI: 10.1063/5.0096356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
We numerically study the equilibrium relaxation dynamics of a two-dimensional Mari-Kurchan glass model. The tree-like structure of particle interactions forbids both non-trivial structural motifs and the emergence of a complex free-energy landscape leading to a thermodynamic glass transition, while the finite-dimensional nature of the model prevents the existence of a mode-coupling singularity. Nevertheless, the equilibrium relaxation dynamics is shown to be in excellent agreement with simulations performed in conventional glass-formers. Averaged time-correlation functions display a phenomenology typical of supercooled liquids, including the emergence of an excess signal in relaxation spectra at intermediate frequencies. We show that this evolution is accompanied by strong signatures of collective and heterogeneous dynamics which cannot be interpreted in terms of single particle hopping and emerge from dynamic facilitation. Our study demonstrates that an off-lattice interacting particle model with extremely simple structural correlations displays quantitatively realistic glassy dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Atsushi Ikeda
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan
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McKenna GB, Chen D, Mangalara SCH, Kong D, Banik S. Some open challenges in polymer physics*. POLYM ENG SCI 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/pen.25938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Gregory B. McKenna
- Department of Chemical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas USA
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering North Carolina State University Raleigh North Carolina USA
| | - Dongjie Chen
- Department of Chemical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas USA
| | | | - Dejie Kong
- Department of Chemical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas USA
| | - Sourya Banik
- Department of Chemical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas USA
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Surface equilibration mechanism controls the molecular packing of glassy molecular semiconductors at organic interfaces. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2111988118. [PMID: 34645709 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2111988118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Glasses prepared by physical vapor deposition (PVD) are anisotropic, and the average molecular orientation can be varied significantly by controlling the deposition conditions. While previous work has characterized the average structure of thick PVD glasses, most experiments are not sensitive to the structure near an underlying substrate or interface. Given the profound influence of the substrate on the growth of crystalline or liquid crystalline materials, an underlying substrate might be expected to substantially alter the structure of a PVD glass, and this near-interface structure is important for the function of organic electronic devices prepared by PVD, such as organic light-emitting diodes. To study molecular packing near buried organic-organic interfaces, we prepare superlattice structures (stacks of 5- or 10-nm layers) of organic semiconductors, Alq3 (Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum) and DSA-Ph (1,4-di-[4-(N,N-diphenyl)amino]styrylbenzene), using PVD. Superlattice structures significantly increase the fraction of the films near buried interfaces, thereby allowing for quantitative characterization of interfacial packing. Remarkably, both X-ray scattering and spectroscopic ellipsometry indicate that the substrate exerts a negligible influence on PVD glass structure. Thus, the surface equilibration mechanism previously advanced for thick films can successfully describe PVD glass structure even within the first monolayer of deposition on an organic substrate.
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Berthier L. Self-Induced Heterogeneity in Deeply Supercooled Liquids. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2021; 127:088002. [PMID: 34477435 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.127.088002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2020] [Accepted: 07/29/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
A theoretical treatment of deeply supercooled liquids is difficult because their properties emerge from spatial inhomogeneities that are self-induced, transient, and nanoscopic. I use computer simulations to analyze self-induced static and dynamic heterogeneity in equilibrium systems approaching the experimental glass transition. I characterize the broad sample-to-sample fluctuations of salient dynamic and thermodynamic properties in elementary mesoscopic systems. Findings regarding local lifetimes and distributions of dynamic heterogeneity are in excellent agreement with recent single molecule studies. Surprisingly broad thermodynamic fluctuations are also found, which correlate well with dynamic fluctuations, thus providing a local test of the thermodynamic origin of slow dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ludovic Berthier
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France and Yusuf Hamied Deprtment of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, United Kingdom
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Mei B, Zhou Y, Schweizer KS. Experimental test of a predicted dynamics-structure-thermodynamics connection in molecularly complex glass-forming liquids. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:e2025341118. [PMID: 33903245 PMCID: PMC8106312 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2025341118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding in a unified manner the generic and chemically specific aspects of activated dynamics in diverse glass-forming liquids over 14 or more decades in time is a grand challenge in condensed matter physics, physical chemistry, and materials science and engineering. Large families of conceptually distinct models have postulated a causal connection with qualitatively different "order parameters" including various measures of structure, free volume, thermodynamic properties, short or intermediate time dynamics, and mechanical properties. Construction of a predictive theory that covers both the noncooperative and cooperative activated relaxation regimes remains elusive. Here, we test using solely experimental data a recent microscopic dynamical theory prediction that although activated relaxation is a spatially coupled local-nonlocal event with barriers quantified by local pair structure, it can also be understood based on the dimensionless compressibility via an equilibrium statistical mechanics connection between thermodynamics and structure. This prediction is found to be consistent with observations on diverse fragile molecular liquids under isobaric and isochoric conditions and provides a different conceptual view of the global relaxation map. As a corollary, a theoretical basis is established for the structural relaxation time scale growing exponentially with inverse temperature to a high power, consistent with experiments in the deeply supercooled regime. A criterion for the irrelevance of collective elasticity effects is deduced and shown to be consistent with viscous flow in low-fragility inorganic network-forming melts. Finally, implications for relaxation in the equilibrated deep glass state are briefly considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Baicheng Mei
- Department of Materials Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Material Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Yuxing Zhou
- Department of Materials Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Material Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Kenneth S Schweizer
- Department of Materials Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801;
- Material Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
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11
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Parmar ADS, Guiselin B, Berthier L. Stable glassy configurations of the Kob-Andersen model using swap Monte Carlo. J Chem Phys 2020; 153:134505. [PMID: 33032429 DOI: 10.1063/5.0020208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
The swap Monte Carlo algorithm allows the preparation of highly stable glassy configurations for a number of glass-formers but is inefficient for some models, such as the much studied binary Kob-Andersen (KA) mixture. We have recently developed generalizations to the KA model where swap can be very effective. Here, we show that these models can, in turn, be used to considerably enhance the stability of glassy configurations in the original KA model at no computational cost. We successfully develop several numerical strategies both in and out of equilibrium to achieve this goal and show how to optimize them. We provide several physical measurements indicating that the proposed algorithms considerably enhance mechanical and thermodynamic stability in the KA model, including a transition toward brittle yielding behavior. Our results thus pave the way for future studies of stable glasses using the KA model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anshul D S Parmar
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France
| | - Benjamin Guiselin
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France
| | - Ludovic Berthier
- Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université de Montpellier, CNRS, 34095 Montpellier, France
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