Liquid-like atoms in dense-packed solid glasses
Source abstract
Abstract
Revealing the microscopic structural and dynamic pictures of glasses is a long-standing challenge for scientists1,2. Extensive studies on the structure and relaxation dynamics of glasses have constructed the current classical picture3-5: glasses consist of some 'soft zones' of loosely bound atoms embedded in a tightly bound atomic matrix. Recent experiments have found an additional fast process in the relaxation spectra6-9, but the underlying physics of this process remains unclear. Here, combining extensive dynamic experiments and computer simulations, we reveal that this fast relaxation is associated with string-like diffusion of liquid-like atoms, which are inherited from the high-temperature liquids. Even at room temperature, some atoms in dense-packed metallic glasses can diffuse just as easily as they would in liquid states, with an experimentally determined viscosity as low as 107 Pa·s. This finding extends our current microscopic picture of glass solids and might help establish the dynamics-property relationship of glasses4.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Material Dynamics and Properties · Theoretical and Computational Physics · Glass properties and applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (39)
Show source-provided references
1. Debenedetti, P. G. & Stillinger, F. H. Supercooled liquids and the glass transition. Nature 410, 259–267 (2001).10.1038/35065704 ↗
2. Berthier, L. & Biroli, G. Theoretical perspective on the glass transition and amorphous materials. Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 587–645 (2011).10.1103/RevModPhys.83.587 ↗
3. Wagner, H. et al. Local elastic properties of a metallic glass. Nat. Mater. 10, 439–442 (2011).10.1038/nmat3024 ↗
4. Wang, W. H. Dynamic relaxations and relaxation–property relationships in metallic glasses. Prog. Mater. Sci. 106, 100561 (2019).10.1016/j.pmatsci.2019.03.006 ↗
5. Wang, Z., Sun, B. A., Bai, H. Y. & Wang, W. H. Evolution of hidden localized flow during glass-to-liquid transition in metallic glass. Nat. Commun. 5, 5823 (2014).10.1038/ncomms6823 ↗
6. Wang, Q. et al. Unusual fast secondary relaxation in metallic glass. Nat. Commun. 6, 7876 (2015).10.1038/ncomms8876 ↗
7. Zhao, L. Z. et al. A fast dynamic mode in rare earth based glasses. J. Chem. Phys. 144, 204507 (2016).10.1063/1.4952421 ↗
8. Wang, Q. et al. Universal secondary relaxation and unusual brittle-to-ductile transition in metallic glasses. Mater. Today 20, 293–300 (2017).10.1016/j.mattod.2017.05.007 ↗
9. Küchemann, S. & Maaß, R. Gamma relaxation in bulk metallic glasses. Scr. Mater. 137, 5–8 (2017).10.1016/j.scriptamat.2017.04.034 ↗
10. Day, J. & Beamish, J. Low-temperature shear modulus changes in solid 4He and connection to supersolidity. Nature 450, 853–856 (2007).10.1038/nature06383 ↗
11. Cavazzoni, C. et al. Superionic and metallic states of water and ammonia at giant planet conditions. Science 283, 44–46 (1999).10.1126/science.283.5398.44 ↗
12. Liu, C. et al. Multiple superionic states in helium–water compounds. Nat. Phys. 15, 1065–1070 (2019).10.1038/s41567-019-0568-7 ↗
13. Liu, H. L. et al. Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics. Nat. Mater. 11, 422–425 (2012).10.1038/nmat3273 ↗
14. Wang, Y. et al. Design principles for solid-state lithium superionic conductors. Nat. Mater. 14, 1026–1031 (2015).10.1038/nmat4369 ↗
15. Huang, P. Y. et al. Imaging atomic rearrangements in two-dimensional silica glass: watching silica’s dance. Science 342, 224–227 (2013).10.1126/science.1242248 ↗
16. Yang, Y. et al. Determining the three-dimensional atomic structure of an amorphous solid. Nature 592, 60–64 (2021).10.1038/s41586-021-03354-0 ↗
17. Yu, H. B., Wang, W. H., Bai, H. Y. & Samwer, K. The β-relaxation in metallic glasses. Natl Sci. Rev. 1, 429–461 (2014).10.1093/nsr/nwu018 ↗
18. Luo, P., Wen, P., Bai, H. Y., Ruta, B. & Wang, W. H. Relaxation decoupling in metallic glasses at low temperatures. Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 225901 (2017).10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.225901 ↗
19. Angell, C. A. Formation of glasses from liquids and biopolymers. Science 267, 1924–1935 (1995).10.1126/science.267.5206.1924 ↗
20. Iwashita, T., Nicholson, D. M. & Egami, T. Elementary excitations and crossover phenomenon in liquids. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 205504 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.205504 ↗
21. Blodgett, M. E., Egami, T., Nussinov, Z. & Kelton, K. F. Proposal for universality in the viscosity of metallic liquids. Sci. Rep. 5, 13837 (2015).10.1038/srep13837 ↗
22. Chathoth, S. M., Damaschke, B., Embs, J. P. & Samwer, K. Giant changes in atomic dynamics on microalloying metallic melt. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 191907 (2009).10.1063/1.3263950 ↗
23. Yu, H. B., Wang, W. H., Bai, H. Y., Wu, Y. & Chen, M. W. Relating activation of shear transformation zones to beta relaxations in metallic glasses. Phys. Rev. B 81, 220201 (2010).10.1103/PhysRevB.81.220201 ↗
24. Pueblo, C. E., Sun, M. & Kelton, K. F. Strength of the repulsive part of the interatomic potential determines fragility in metallic liquids. Nat. Mater. 16, 792–796 (2017).10.1038/nmat4935 ↗
25. Beiner, M. & Ngai, K. L. Interrelation between primary and secondary relaxations in polymerizing systems based on epoxy resins. Macromolecules 38, 7033–7042 (2005).10.1021/ma050384j ↗
26. Huo, L. S., Zeng, J. F., Wang, W. H., Liu, C. T. & Yang, Y. The dependence of shear modulus on dynamic relaxation and evolution of local structural heterogeneity in a metallic glass. Acta Mater. 61, 4329–4338 (2013).10.1016/j.actamat.2013.04.004 ↗
27. Cao, C. R. et al. Liquid-like behaviours of metallic glassy nanoparticles at room temperature. Nat. Commun. 10, 1966 (2019).10.1038/s41467-019-09895-3 ↗
28. Qiu, W. J. et al. Part-crystalline part-liquid state and rattling-like thermal damping in materials with chemical-bond hierarchy. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15031–15035 (2014).10.1073/pnas.1410349111 ↗
29. Lindemann, F. A. The calculation of molecular eigen-frequencies. Phys. Z. 11, 609–612 (1910).
30. Zhang, H., Wang, X., Yu, H. B. & Douglas, J. F. Fast dynamics in a model metallic glass-forming material. J. Chem. Phys. 154, 084505 (2021).10.1063/5.0039162 ↗
31. Nelson, D. R. Order, frustration, and defects in liquids and glasses. Phys. Rev. B 28, 5515–5535 (1983).10.1103/PhysRevB.28.5515 ↗
32. Miracle, D. B. A structural model for metallic glasses. Nat. Mater. 3, 697–702 (2004).10.1038/nmat1219 ↗
33. Rouxel, T., Ji, H., Hammouda, T. & Moreac, A. Poisson’s ratio and the densification of glass under high pressure. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 4 (2008).10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.225501 ↗
34. Fan, Y., Iwashita, T. & Egami, T. How thermally activated deformation starts in metallic glass. Nat. Commun. 5, 5083 (2014).10.1038/ncomms6083 ↗
35. Middlemiss, R. P. et al. Measurement of the Earth tides with a MEMS gravimeter. Nature 531, 614–617 (2016).10.1038/nature17397 ↗
36. Ghadimi, A. H. et al. Elastic strain engineering for ultralow mechanical dissipation. Science 360, aar6939 (2018).10.1126/science.aar6939 ↗
37. Ma, E. Tuning order in disorder. Nat. Mater. 14, 547–552 (2015).10.1038/nmat4300 ↗
38. Wu, Y. et al. Substantially enhanced plasticity of bulk metallic glasses by densifying local atomic packing. Nat. Commun. 12, 6582 (2021).10.1038/s41467-021-26858-9 ↗
39. Ma, J. et al. Fast surface dynamics enabled cold joining of metallic glasses. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax7256 (2019).10.1126/sciadv.aax7256 ↗