1. Hidden dormant phase mediating the glass transition in disordered matter
- Author
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Park, Eunyoung, Kim, Sinwoo, Wang, Melody M., Hwang, Junha, Lee, Sung Yun, Shin, Jaeyong, Heo, Seung-Phil, Choi, Jungchan, Lee, Heemin, Jang, Dogeun, Kim, Minseok, Kim, Kyung Sook, Kim, Sangsoo, Eom, Intae, Nam, Daewoong, Gu, X. Wendy, and Song, Changyong
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks - Abstract
Metallic glass is a frozen liquid with structural disorder that retains degenerate free energy without spontaneous symmetry breaking to become a solid. For over half a century, this puzzling structure has raised fundamental questions about how structural disorder impacts glass-liquid phase transition kinetics, which remain elusive without direct evidence. In this study, through single-pulse, time-resolved imaging using X-ray free-electron lasers, we visualized the glass-to-liquid transition, revealing a previously hidden dormant phase that does not involve any macroscopic volume change within the crossover regime between the two phases. Although macroscopically inactive, nanoscale redistribution occurs, forming channeld low-density bands within this dormant phase that drives the glass transition. By providing direct microscopic evidence, this work presents a new perspective on the phase transition process in disordered materials, which can be extended to various liquid and solid phases in other complex systems., Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures
- Published
- 2024