TY - JOUR
T1 - Probing equilibrium glass flow up to exapoise viscosities
AU - Pogn, Eva Arianna Aurelia
AU - Rodríguez-Tinoco, Cristian
AU - Cerullo, Giulio
AU - Ferrante, Carino
AU - Rodríguez-Viejo, Javier
AU - Scopigno, Tullio
PY - 2015/2/24
Y1 - 2015/2/24
N2 - Glasses are out-of-equilibrium systems aging under the crystallization threat. During ordinary glass formation, the atomic diffusion slows down, rendering its experimental investigation impractically long, to the extent that a timescale divergence is taken for granted by many. We circumvent these limitations here, taking advantage of a wide family of glasses rapidly obtained by physical vapor deposition directly into the solid state, endowed with different "ages" rivaling those reached by standard cooling and waiting for millennia. Isothermally probing the mechanical response of each of these glasses, we infer a correspondence with viscosity along the equilibrium line, up to exapoise values. We find a dependence of the elastic modulus on the glass age, which, traced back to the temperature steepness index of the viscosity, tears down one of the cornerstones of several glass transition theories: the dynamical divergence. Critically, our results suggest that the conventional wisdom picture of a glass ceasing to flow at finite temperature could be wrong.
AB - Glasses are out-of-equilibrium systems aging under the crystallization threat. During ordinary glass formation, the atomic diffusion slows down, rendering its experimental investigation impractically long, to the extent that a timescale divergence is taken for granted by many. We circumvent these limitations here, taking advantage of a wide family of glasses rapidly obtained by physical vapor deposition directly into the solid state, endowed with different "ages" rivaling those reached by standard cooling and waiting for millennia. Isothermally probing the mechanical response of each of these glasses, we infer a correspondence with viscosity along the equilibrium line, up to exapoise values. We find a dependence of the elastic modulus on the glass age, which, traced back to the temperature steepness index of the viscosity, tears down one of the cornerstones of several glass transition theories: the dynamical divergence. Critically, our results suggest that the conventional wisdom picture of a glass ceasing to flow at finite temperature could be wrong.
KW - Aging
KW - Glass transition
KW - Inelastic scattering
KW - Supercooled liquid
KW - Vibrational properties
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1423435112
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1423435112
M3 - Article
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 112
SP - 2331
EP - 2336
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ER -