Related papers: Ideal glass transitions in thin films: An energy l…
The glass transition temperature and its connection to statistical properties of confined and free-standing polymer films of varying thickness containing unentangled to highly entangled bead-spring chains are studied by molecular dynamics…
When a liquid melt is cooled, a glass or phase transition can be obtained depending on the cooling rate. Yet, this behavior has not been clearly captured in energy landscape models. Here a model is provided in which two key ingredients are…
The thermodynamic and kinetic anomalies of supercooled liquids are analyzed from the perspective of energy landscapes. A mean field model, a generalized random energy model of liquids is developed, which exhibits a dynamical transition of…
Using the inherent structure formalism originally proposed by Stillinger and Weber [Phys. Rev. A 25, 978 (1982)], we generalize the thermodynamics of an energy landscape that has an ideal glass transition and derive the consequences for its…
We show that a glass transition, signaled by a peak in the specific heat vs. temperature, can occur because a glassy system that shows no signs of aging progresses so slowly through the energy landscape that the time needed to obtain an…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the glass transition temperature of thin polymer films can be shifted as compared to the same polymer in the bulk, the amplitude and the sign of this effect depending on the interaction between the…
In order to understand the long-standing problem of the nature of glass states, we performed intensive simulations on the thermodynamic properties and potential energy surface of an ideal glass. We found that the atoms of an ideal glass…
An equilibrated model glass-forming liquid is studied by mapping successive configurations produced by molecular dynamics simulation onto a time series of inherent structures (local minima in the potential energy). Using this ``inherent…
Searching for the ideal glass transition, we exploit the ability of glassy polymer films to explore low energy states in remarkably short time scales. We use 30 nm thick polystyrene (PS) films, which in the supercooled state basically…
An analytical model of non-Gaussian energy landscape of low-temperature fluids is developed based on the thermodynamics of the fluid of dipolar hard spheres. The entire excitation profile of the liquid, from the high temperatures to the…
There is a growing belief that the mode coupling theory is the proper microscopic theory for the dynamics of the undercooled liquid above a critical temperature T_c. In addition, there is some evidence that the system leaves the…
The minimal cooling speed required to form a glass is obtained for a simple solvable energy landscape model. The model, made from a two-level system modified to include the topology of the energy landscape, is able to capture either a glass…
Glass-to-glass and liquid-to-liquid phase transitions were observed many years ago in bulk and confined water with or without applied pressure. It is shown that they result from the competition of two-liquid phases separated by an enthalpy…
A simple and predictive model is put forward explaining the experimentally observed substantial shift of the glass transition temperature, Tg, of sufficiently thin polymer films. It focuses on the limit of small molecular weight, where…
Using the potential energy landscape formalism we show that, in the temperature range in which the dynamics of a glass forming system is thermally activated, there exists a unique set of "basis glass states" each of which is confined to a…
We introduce the ideal Gaussian glass-forming system as a model to describe the thermodynamics and dynamics of supercooled liquids on a local scale in terms of the properties of the potential energy landscape (PEL). The first ingredient is…
In this paper and in the companion one we address the problem of identifying the effective theory that describes the statistics of the fluctuations of what is thought to be the relevant order parameter for glassy systems---the overlap field…
The free-energy landscape of two peptides is evaluated at various temperatures and an estimate for its fractal dimension at these temperatures calculated. We show that monitoring this quantity as a function of temperature allows to…
We develop the Elastically Collective Nonlinear Langevin Equation theory to investigate, for the first time, glassy dynamics in capped metallic glass thin films. Finite-size effects on the spatial gradient of structural relaxation time and…
This paper reviews recent Monte Carlo simulation studies of the glassy behavior in thin polymer films. The simulations employ a version of the bond-fluctuation lattice model, in which the glass transition is driven by the competition…