Direct observation of molecular cooperativity near the glass transition

2000/12/01 by E. Vidal Russell, N. E. Israeloff · 7 citations
Chemical Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Thermodynamic properties of mixtures #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.soft

paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/35047037

published as Nature 408, 695 (2000) · 14 pages pdf, need Acrobat Reader

crossref issued 2000/12/01 · crossref published 2000/12/01 · crossref published-print 2000/12/01 · openalex publication_date 2000/12/01 · arxiv created 2000/12/13 · crossref created 2002/07/26 · arxiv updated 2016/03/23 · crossref deposited 2023/05/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We describe direct observations of molecular cooperativity near the glass transition in poly-vinyl-acetate (PVAc), through nanometer-scale probing of dielectric fluctuations. Molecular clusters switched spontaneously between two to four distinct configurations, producing complex random-telegraph-signals (RTS). Analysis of the RTS and their power spectra shows that individual clusters exhibit both transient dynamical heterogeneity and non-exponential kinetics.

Citations

• On the Temperature Dependence of Cooperative Relaxation Properties in Glass-Forming Liquids
• Nanometer Scale Dielectric Fluctuations at the Glass Transition
• Spatially Heterogeneous Dynamics in Supercooled Liquids

Cited by

• Los fieles difuntos
• Activated events in glasses: The structure of entropic droplets
• Out-of-equilibrium dynamical fluctuations in glassy systems
• Is there a fractional breakdown of the Stokes-Einstein relation in kinetically constrained models at low temperature?
• Fluctuation theorems and 1/f noise from a simple matrix
• Long-range correlations in the electric signals that precede rupture
• Honey [wikipedia]