No Arabic abstract
The range of the magnitude of the liquid viscosity as a function of the temperature (T) is one of the most impressive of any physical property, changing by approximately 17 orders of magnitude from its extrapolated value at infinite temperature to that at the glass transition. We present experimental measurements of containerlessly processed metallic liquids that reveal that the ratio of the viscosity to its extrapolated infinite temperature value follows a universal function of Tcoop/T. The temperature Tcoop corresponds to the onset of cooperative motion and is strongly correlated with the glass transition temperature. On average the extrapolated infinite temperature viscosity is found to be nh, where h is Plancks constant and n is the particle number density. A surprising universality in the viscosity of metallic liquids and its relation to the glass transition is demonstrated.
We present a detailed investigation of the wave vector dependence of collective atomic motion in Au49Cu26.9Si16.3Ag5.5Pd2.3 and Pd42.5Cu27Ni9.5P21 supercooled liquids close to the glass transition temperature. Using x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy in a precedent uncovered spatial range of only few interatomic distances, we show that the microscopic structural relaxation process follows in phase the structure with a marked slowing down at the main average inter-particle distance. This behavior is accompanied by dramatic changes in the shape of the intermediate scattering functions which suggest the presence of large dynamical heterogeneities at length-scales corresponding to few particle diameters. A ballistic-like mechanism of particle motion seems to govern the structural relaxation of the two systems in the highly viscous phase, likely associated to hopping of caged particles in agreement with theoretical studies.
In this work we revisit the description of dynamics based on the concepts of metabasins and activation in mildly supercooled liquids via the analysis of the dynamics of a paradigmatic glass former between its onset temperature $T_{o}$ and mode-coupling temperature $T_{c}$. First, we provide measures that demonstrate that the onset of glassiness is indeed connected to the landscape, and that metabasin waiting time distributions are so broad that the system can remain stuck in a metabasin for times that exceed $tau_alpha$ by orders of magnitude. We then reanalyze the transitions between metabasins, providing several indications that the standard picture of activated dynamics in terms of traps does not hold in this regime. Instead, we propose that here activation is principally driven by entropic instead of energetic barriers. In particular, we illustrate that activation is not controlled by the hopping of high energetic barriers, and should more properly be interpreted as the entropic selection of nearly barrierless but rare pathways connecting metabasins on the landscape.
We experimentally investigate the fluidization of a granular material subject to mechanical vibrations by monitoring the angular velocity of a vane suspended in the medium and driven by an external motor. On increasing the frequency we observe a re-entrant transition, as a jammed system first enters a fluidized state, where the vane rotates with high constant velocity, and then returns to a frictional state, where the vane velocity is much lower. While the fluidization frequency is material independent, the viscosity recovery frequency shows a clear dependence on the material, that we rationalize by relating this frequency to the balance between dissipative and inertial forces in the system. Molecular dynamics simulations well reproduce the experimental data, confirming the suggested theoretical picture.
In this article we show that the phase-ordering scaling state for binary fluids is not necessarily unique and that local correlations in the initial conditions can be responsible for selecting the scaling state. We describe a new scaling state for symmetric volume fractions that consists of drops of the one component suspended in a matrix of the other. The underlying reason for the existence of the newly observed scaling state is that the main coarsening mechanism of binary fluids which is the deformation of interfaces by flow is not acting, and this leads to a new scaling law. An initial droplet state can be formed by a number of physical phenomena. In a unified description this can be undestood as local correlations in the initial conditions. Local correlations with length $xi$ are believed to be irrelevant when the typical length scale L of the system is large ($Lgg xi$). Our result shows that these initial correlations, contrary to current thinking, can be important even at late times.
We show experimentally that in a supercooled liquid composed of molecules with internal degrees of freedom the internal modes contribute to the frequency dependent shear viscosity and damping of transverse phonons, which results in an additional broadening of the transverse Brillouin lines. Earlier, only the effect of internal modes on the frequency dependent bulk viscosity and damping of longitudinal phonons was observed and explained theoretically in the limit of weak coupling of internal degrees of freedom to translational motion. A new theory is needed to describe this new effect. We also demonstrate, that the contributions of structural relaxation and internal processes to the width of the Brillouin lines can be separated by measurements under high pressure.