Related papers: Facets of glass physics
Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the…
Spin glasses are magnetic systems exhibiting both quenched disorder and frustration, and have often been cited as examples of `complex systems.' In this talk I review some of the basic notions of spin glass physics, and discuss how some of…
Glass is highly sensitive to surface flaws generated by contact. Surface cracks threaten both its mechanical strength and visual aspect. Recent trends in glass functionalisation by grafting or coating lend an even more prominent role to the…
The physics of glasses can be studied from many viewpoints, from material scientists interested in the development of new materials to statistical physicists inventing new theoretical tools to deal with disordered systems. In these lectures…
Glass is everywhere. We use and are surrounded by glass objects which make tangible the reality of glass as a distinct state of matter. Yet, glass as we know it is usually obtained by cooling a liquid sufficiently rapidly below its melting…
A wide range of materials can exist in microscopically disordered solid forms, referred to as amorphous solids or glasses. Such materials -- oxide glasses and metallic glasses, to polymer glasses, and soft solids such as colloidal glasses,…
Glasses are ubiquitous amorphous solids that remain one of the big mysteries in condensed matter. Despite the vast body of literature on glasses, a unifying approach to link the structure and dynamics of glasses is still missing. A growing…
Glass formation is one of the most interesting phenomena in the condensed matter field. Considerable effort has gone into understanding and predicting the glass formability. However, the previous prediction requires the glass first made…
The very nature of glass is somewhat mysterious: while relaxation times in glasses are of sufficient magnitude that large-scale motion on the atomic level is essentially as slow as it is in the crystalline state, the structure of glass…
This paper gives an introduction to some of the statistical physics problems which appear in the study of structural glasses. It is a shortened and updated version of a more detailed review paper which has appeared in cond-mat/0005173.
We provide here a brief perspective on the glass transition field. It is an assessment, written from the point of view of theory, of where the field is and where it seems to be heading. We first give an overview of the main phenomenological…
This is a commentary on two recent experimental papers in PNAS by Vivek et al. and Illing et al. that convincingly address an issue at the junction of two fundamental questions in glass physics: the role of the dimensionality of space on…
The topic of the glass transition gives rise to a a wide diversity of views. It is, accordingly, characterized by a lack of agreement on which would be the most profitable theoretical perspective. In this chapter, I provide some elements…
We consider fundamental physical constants which are among a few of the most important pieces of information we have learned about Nature after its intensive centuries-long studies. We discuss their multifunctional role in modern physics…
Spin glasses are disordered magnetic systems that exhibit a variety of properties that are characteristic of complex systems. After a brief review of basic spin glass concepts, their use in areas such as computer science, biology, and other…
The glassy state is known to undergo slow structural relaxation, where the system progressively explores lower free-energy minima which are either amorphous (ageing) or crystalline (devitrification). Recently, there is growing interest in…
Faced with the Kauzmann paradox, glasses have always been a puzzle for condensed matter theorists. We show that in a new picture of condensed matter, which takes into account the coherent interaction mechanisms of QED, glasses are nothing…
Understanding glass formation is a challenge because the existence of a true glass state, distinct from liquid and solid, remains elusive: Glasses are liquids that have become too viscous to flow. An old idea, as yet unproven…
Ten years ago, the new era of time crystals began. Time crystals are systems that behave in the time dimension like ordinary space crystals do in space dimensions. We present a brief history of a decade of research on time crystals,…
Throughout human history, people have used sight to learn about the world, but only in relatively recent times the science of light has been developed. Egyptians and Mesopotamians made the first known lenses out of quartz, giving birth to…