Real-time microscopic view of the relaxation of a glass

Abstract

The understanding of glassy dynamics above the devitrification temperature of a glass remains poorly understood. Here, we use real-time AFM imaging to build a spatio-temporal map of the relaxation dynamics of a highly stable glass into its supercooled liquid. This new methodology enables a direct visualization of the progression of the liquid phase and clarifies and quantifies the presence of localized fast mobility regions separated by giant length scales. Our data permit to establish a clear correlation between dynamic length and time scales in glasses. This approach may also be applicable to unveil the microscopic structure and dynamics of other glass forming systems with much shorter length and time scales, including liquid-cooled glasses.

References in corpus (4)

• Perspective: Highly stable vapor-deposited glasses
• One micron length scale controls kinetic stability of low energy glasses
• Experimental evidence of a crossover between cooperative relaxation and liquid growth dynamics
• Two-step devitrification of ultrastable glasses

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Front propagation in ultrastable glasses is dynamically heterogeneous
• Dynamical Facilitation Governs the Equilibration Dynamics of Glasses
• Single parameter aging and density scaling
• Initial Stages of Rejuvenation of Vapor-Deposited Glasses during Isothermal Annealing: Contrast Between Experiment and Simulation
• Large temperature-up-jump simulations of a binary Lennard-Jones system