2016/05/23 by Matthieu Micoulaut, M. Micoulaut · 119 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Characterization (materials science) #Connection (principal bundle) #Glass properties and applications #Glass transition #Material Dynamics and Properties #Phase-change materials and chalcogenides #Phenomenology (philosophy) #Relaxation (psychology) #Rigidity (electromagnetism) #Salient #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0034-4885/79/6/066504
published in Reports on Progress in Physics 79(6), 066504 (IOP Publishing) · Review, 84 pages without figures
openalex publication_date 2016/05/23 · arxiv created 2016/05/24 · arxiv updated 2016/06/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent progress in the description of glassy relaxation and aging are reviewed for the wide class of network-forming materials such as GeO2, Ge x Se1-x , silicates (SiO2-Na2O) or borates (B2O3-Li2O), all of which have an important usefulness in domestic, geological or optoelectronic applications. A brief introduction of the glass transition phenomenology is given, together with the salient features that are revealed both from theory and experiments. Standard experimental methods used for the characterization of the slowing down of the dynamics are reviewed. We then discuss the important role played by aspects of network topology and rigidity for the understanding of the relaxation of the glass transition, while also permitting analytical predictions of glass properties from simple and insightful models based on the network structure. We also emphasize the great utility of computer simulations which probe the dynamics at the molecular level, and permit the calculation of various structure-related functions in connection with glassy relaxation and the physics of aging which reveal the non-equilibrium nature of glasses. We discuss the notion of spatial variations of structure which leads to the concept of 'dynamic heterogeneities', and recent results in relation to this important topic for network glasses are also reviewed.