No Arabic abstract
Slow relaxation and aging of the conductance are experimental features of a range of materials, which are collectively known as electron glasses. We report dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of the standard electron glass lattice model. In a non-equilibrium state, the electrons will often form a Fermi distribution with an effective electron temperature higher than the phonon bath temperature. We study the effective temperature as a function of time in three different situations: relaxation after a quench from an initial random state, during driving by an external electric field and during relaxation after such driving. We observe logarithmic relaxation of the effective temperature after a quench from a random initial state as well as after driving the system for some time $t_w$ with a strong electric field. For not too strong electric field and not too long $t_w$ we observe that data for the effective temperature at different waiting times collapse when plotted as functions of $t/t_w$ -- the so-called simple aging. During the driving period we study how the effective temperature is established, separating the contributions from the sites involved in jumps from those that were not involved. It is found that the heating mainly affects the sites involved in jumps, but at strong driving, also the remaining sites are heated.
A new protocol for an aging experiment is studied in the electron-glass phase of indium-oxide films. In this protocol, the sample is exposed to a non-ohmic electric field F for a waiting time t_{w} during which the system attempts to reach a steady state (rather than relax towards equilibrium). The relaxation of the excess conductance dG after ohmic conditions are restored exhibit simple aging as long as F is not too large.
We investigate the stress relaxation behavior on the application of step strains to aging aqueous suspensions of the synthetic clay Laponite. The stress exhibits a two-step decay, from which the slow relaxation modes are extracted as functions of the sample ages and applied step strain deformations. Interestingly, the slow time scales that we estimate show a dramatic enhancement with increasing strain amplitudes. We argue that the system ends up exploring the deeper sections of its energy landscape following the application of the step strain.
The relaxation of the specific heat and the entropy to their equilibrium values is investigated numerically for the three-dimensional Coulomb glass at very low temperatures. The long time relaxation follows a stretched exponential function, $f(t)=f_0exp[-(t/tau)^beta]$, with the exponent $beta$ increasing with the temperature. The relaxation time follows an Arrhenius behavior divergence when $Tto 0$. A relation between the specific heat and the entropy in the long time regime is found.
We investigate the dielectric response in the glass-electret state of two dipolar glass-forming materials. This unusual polar glassy state of matter is produced when a dipolar liquid is supercooled under the influence of a high electric dc field, which leads to partial orientational order of the molecules carrying a dipole moment. Investigation of the prepared glass-electrets by using low-field dielectric spectroscopy reveals a clear modification of their dielectric response in the regime of the Johari-Goldstein beta-relaxation, pointing to a small but significant increase of its relaxation strength compared to the normal glass. We discuss the implications of this finding for the still controversial microscopic interpretation of the Johari-Goldstein relaxation, an inherent property of glassy matter.
Low-frequency Raman and inelastic neutron scattering of amorphous bis-phenol A polycarbonate is measured at low temperature, and compared. The vibrational density of states and light-vibration coupling coefficient are determined. The frequency dependences of these parameters are explained by propagating vibration modes up to an energy of about 1 meV, and fracton-like modes in more cohesive domains at higher energies. The vibrational dynamics is in agreement with a disorder in the glass, which is principally of bonding or of elasticity instead of density.