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Special Issue "Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0"

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A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2023 | Viewed by 3521

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Dr. Andrzej Grzybowski

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August Chełkowski Institute of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Silesia in Katowice, 75 Pułku Piechoty 1, PL-41500 Chorzów, Poland
Interests: theoretical and experimental aspects of condensed matter physics covering the glass transition and related phenomena occurring in the supercooled liquid and glassy states of various materials, including their recrystallization; molecular dynamics simulations of liquids, supercooled liquids, and liquid crystals; methods for analyzing experimental data measured in ambient and high-pressure conditions using several techniques (dielectric, mechanical, and light-scattering spectroscopies, pressure–volume–temperature, and calorimetric measurements); equations of state; models of the thermodynamic evolution of dynamic quantities; dynamic heterogeneity and density scaling in model and real molecular systems; spatially confined systems
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is the continuation of our previous Special Issue, “Glass Transition and Related Phenomena”.

The glass transition and the physicochemical phenomena that occur in the supercooled liquid and glassy states remain partially shrouded in mystery despite decades of research. There is still no complete theory that would uncover the mysteries of the liquid–glass transition and satisfactorily describe the thermodynamically metastable and nonequilibrium states in its vicinity. On the other hand, the applications of amorphous materials are becoming wider and wider. Therefore, the experimental, simulation, and theoretical investigations of physicochemical phenomena near the glass transition are intensively carried out, resulting in new ideas, observations, and discoveries in this field. One can expect that the great effort being put into gaining a deeper insight into mechanisms that govern the molecular dynamics and thermodynamics near the glass transition will help to progress our understanding of both the cognitive and application aspects considered for noncrystalline states of condensed matter.

The Special Issue of IJMS is intended as a collection of papers focusing on the molecular level in new experimental, simulation, and theoretical achievements, as well as review articles presenting already known ideas from a contemporary point of view. Its aim is to constitute a platform for sharing different approaches to addressing the problems encountered in studying the glass transition and related phenomena.

Dr. Andrzej Grzybowski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

glass transition
supercooled liquids and glasses
physicochemical stability of amorphous materials, recrystallization, and aging
experimental and simulation studies of molecular dynamics and thermodynamics near the glass transition
theoretical ideas on thermodynamically metastable and nonequilibrium systems

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Thermodynamic and Dynamic Transitions and Interaction Aspects in Reorientation Dynamics of Molecular Probe in Organic Compounds: A Series of 1-alkanols with TEMPO

Josef Bartoš

and

Helena Švajdlenková

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(18), 14252; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241814252 - 18 Sep 2023

Viewed by 256

Abstract

The spectral and dynamic properties of 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO) in a series of 1-alkanols ranging from methanol to 1-decanol over a temperature range 100–300 K were investigated by electron spin resonance (ESR). The main characteristic ESR temperatures connected with slow to fast motion regime transition; T_50G ‘s and T_X1^fast ‘s are situated above the corresponding glass temperatures, T_g, and for the shorter members, the T_50G ‘s lie above or close to melting point, T_m, while the longer ones the T_50G < T_m relationship indicates that the TEMPO molecules are in the local disordered regions of the crystalline media. The T_50G ‘s and especially T_X1^fast ‘s are compared with the dynamic crossover temperatures, T_X^VISC = 8.72M^0.66, as obtained by fitting the viscosity data in the liquid n-alkanols with the empirical power law. In particular, for N_C > 6, the T_X1^fast ‘s lie rather close to the T_X^VISC resembling apolar n-alkanes [PCCP 2018,20,11145-11151], while for N_C < 6, they are situated in the vicinity of T_m. The absence of a coincidence for lower1-alkanols indicates that the T_50G is significantly influenced by the mutual interaction between the polar TEMPO and the protic polar medium due to the increased polarity and proticity destroyed by the larger-scale melting transition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0)

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Open AccessArticle

The Flow of Glasses and Glass–Liquid Transition under Electron Irradiation

Michael I. Ojovan

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(15), 12120; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241512120 - 28 Jul 2023

Viewed by 429

Abstract

Recent discovery and investigation of the flow of glasses under the electron beams of transmission electron microscopes raised the question of eventual occurrence of such type effects in the vitrified highly radioactive nuclear waste (HLW). In connection to this, we analyse here the flow of glasses and glass–liquid transition in conditions of continuous electron irradiation such as under the e-beam of transmission electron microscopes (TEM) utilising the configuron (broken chemical bond) concept and configuron percolation theory (CPT) methods. It is shown that in such conditions, the fluidity of glasses always increases with a substantial decrease in activation energy of flow at low temperatures and that the main parameter that controls this behaviour is the dose rate of absorbed radiation in the glass. It is revealed that at high dose rates, the temperature of glass–liquid transition sharply drops, and the glass is fully fluidised. Numerical estimations show that the dose rates of TEM e-beams where the silicate glasses were fluidised are many orders of magnitude higher compared to the dose rates characteristic for currently vitrified HLW. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0)

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Open AccessArticle

Vortex Glass—Vortex Liquid Transition in BaFe₂(As_1-xP_x)₂ and CaKFe₄As₄ Superconductors from Multi-Harmonic AC Magnetic Susceptibility Studies

and

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(9), 7896; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24097896 - 26 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 711

Abstract

For practical applications of superconductors, understanding the vortex matter and dynamics is of paramount importance. An important issue in this context is the transition of the vortex glass, which is a true superconducting phase, into a vortex liquid phase having a linear dissipation. By using multi-harmonic susceptibility studies, we have investigated the vortex glass—vortex liquid phase transitions in CaKFe₄As₄ and BaFe₂(As_0.68P_0.32)₂ single crystals. The principle of our method relates the on-set of the third-harmonic susceptibility response with the appearance of a vortex-glass phase in which the dissipation is non-linear. Similar to the high-critical temperature cuprate superconductors, we have shown that even in these iron-based superconductors with significant lower critical temperatures, such phase transition can be treated as a melting in the sense of Lindemann’s approach, considering an anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau model. The experimental data are consistent with a temperature-dependent London penetration depth given by a 3D XY fluctuations model. The fitting parameters allowed us to extrapolate the vortex melting lines down to the temperature of liquid hydrogen, and such extrapolation showed that CaKFe₄As₄ is a very promising superconducting material for high field applications in liquid hydrogen, with a melting field at 20 K of the order of 100 T. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0)

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Open AccessArticle

Universal Evolution of Fickian Non-Gaussian Diffusion in Two- and Three-Dimensional Glass-Forming Liquids

Francesco Rusciano

Raffaele Pastore

and

Francesco Greco

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(9), 7871; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24097871 - 26 Apr 2023

Viewed by 667

Abstract

Recent works show that glass-forming liquids display Fickian non-Gaussian Diffusion, with non-Gaussian displacement distributions persisting even at very long times, when linearity in the mean square displacement (Fickianity) has already been attained. Such non-Gaussian deviations temporarily exhibit distinctive exponential tails, with a decay [...] Read more.

λ

growing in time as a power-law. We herein carefully examine data from four different glass-forming systems with isotropic interactions, both in two and three dimensions, namely, three numerical models of molecular liquids and one experimentally investigated colloidal suspension. Drawing on the identification of a proper time range for reliable exponential fits, we find that a scaling law

λ (t) \propto t^{α}

, with

α ≃ 1 / 3

, holds for all considered systems, independently from dimensionality. We further show that, for each system, data at different temperatures/concentration can be collapsed onto a master-curve, identifying a characteristic time for the disappearance of exponential tails and the recovery of Gaussianity. We find that such characteristic time is always related through a power-law to the onset time of Fickianity. The present findings suggest that FnGD in glass-formers may be characterized by a “universal” evolution of the distribution tails, independent from system dimensionality, at least for liquids with isotropic potential. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0)

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Open AccessArticle

Time–Temperature Superposition Principle in Shearing Tests Compared to Tension Conditions for Polymers Close to Glass Transition

and

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(4), 3944; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24043944 - 15 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 888

Abstract

The well-known principle of time–temperature superposition (TTS) is of prime interest for polymers close to their glass transition. First demonstrated in the range of linear viscoelasticity, it has been more recently extended to large deformations in tension. However, shear tests were not yet addressed. The present study depicted TTS in shearing conditions and compared it to results in tensile conditions both for low and high strains for a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) of different molar masses. The main objectives were to enlighten the relevance of the principle of time–temperature superposition for shearing at high strain and to discuss the way shift factors should be determined. It was suggested that shift factors could be dependent on compressibility, which should be taken into account when addressing various types of complex mechanical loadings. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glass Transition and Related Phenomena 2.0)

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