Related papers: Rigidity and intermediate phases in glasses driven…
Three elastic phases of covalent networks, (I) floppy, (II) isostatically rigid and (III) stressed-rigid have now been identified in glasses at specific degrees of cross-linking (or chemical composition) both in theory and experiments. Here…
There is growing evidence that electronic and molecular networks present some common universal properties, among which the existence of a self-organized intermediate phase. In glasses, the latter is revealed by the reversibility window…
We review in this paper the signatures of a new elastic phase that is found in glasses with selected compositions. It is shown that in contrast with random networks, where rigidity percolates at a single threshold, networks that are able to…
Experimental results for covalent glasses have highlighted the existence of a new self-organized phase due to the tendency of glass networks to minimize internal stress. Recently, we have shown that an equilibrated self-organized…
Rigidity Percolation is studied analytically on randomly bonded networks with two types of nodes, respectively with coordination numbers $z_1$ and $z_2$, and with $g_1$ and $g_2$ degrees of freedom each. For certain cases that model…
Recent experimental results for covalent glasses suggest the existence of an intermediate phase attributed to the self-organization of the glass network resulting from the tendency to minimize its internal stress. However, the exact nature…
The dynamical properties and mechanical functions of amorphous materials are governed by their microscopic structures, particularly the elasticity of the interaction networks, which is generally complicated by structural heterogeneity. This…
Glass transitions are widely observed in various types of soft matter systems. However, the physical mechanism of these transitions remains {elusive}, despite years of ambitious research. In particular, an important unanswered question is…
Bulk glass formation occurs over a very small part of phase space, and "good" glasses (which form even at low quench rates ~ 10K/sec) select an even smaller part of that accessible phase space. An axiomatic theory provides the physical…
We use computer simulations to investigate the static properties of a simple glass-forming fluid in which the positions of a finite fraction of the particles has been frozen in. By probing the equilibrium distribution of the overlap between…
In network glass including chalcogenides, the network topology of microscopic structures can be tuned by changing the chemical compositions. As the composition is varied, an intermediate phase (IP) singularly different from the adjacent…
The structure of binary As_xS_{1-x} glasses is elucidated using modulated-DSC, Raman scattering, IR reflectance and molar volume experiments over a wide range (8%<x<41%) of compositions. We observe a reversibility window in the calorimetric…
Alkaline earth silicate glasses $xCaO-(1-x)SiO_2$ exhibit a well marked threshold in Raman lineshapes which can be related to the onset of network rigidity as the concentration of calcium oxide $x$ is decreased. The present results are…
The local minima (inherent structures) of a system and their associated transition links give rise to a network. Here we consider the topological and distance properties of such a network in the context of spin glasses. We use steepest…
Extending mode-coupling theory, we elaborate a microscopic theory for the glass transition of liquids confined between two parallel flat hard walls. The theory contains the standard MCT equations in bulk and in two dimensions as limiting…
Apart from not having crystallized, supercooled liquids can be considered as being properly equilibrated and thus can be described by a few thermodynamic control variables. In contrast, glasses and other amorphous solids can be arbitrarily…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
A novel form of amorphous matter characterized by marginal stability was recently discovered in the mean-field theory of structural glasses. Using this approach, we provide complete phase diagrams delimiting the location of the marginally…
We study the role of connectivity on the linear and nonlinear elastic behavior of amorphous systems using a two-dimensional random network of harmonic springs as a model system. A natural characterization of these systems arises in terms of…
In this talk, after a short phenomenological introduction on glasses, I will describe some recent progresses that have been done in glasses using the replica method in the definition and in the evaluation of the configurational entropy (or…