Glass inherent structure

A. Crisanti and F. Ritort, Activated processes and inherent structure dynamics of finite-size mean-field models for glasses. Europhys. Lett. 52, 640 (2000). 

An analogous but much richer behavior is expected to be exhibited by good glass-forming materials. As discussed in more detail in Section IV, the mean inherent structure energy in these systems can show a signihcant... 

The systematic investigation of order phase diagrams, such as that shown in Fig. 9 but for different molecular interactions, the location of inherent structures in the order plane, and the comparative exploration of order (or disorder) in computer glasses generated by different quenching protocols are, we beheve, fruitful avenues for research into the nature, classification, and quantification of disorder in glasses and other technologically important nonequilibrium materials. 

Fig. 10. Schematic illustration of mean-squared atomic displacements versus temperature, measured from the inherent structure, for amorphous-phase basins. The melting, MCT singular, and glass transition temperatures are Tm, T, and Eg, respectively.

Stillinger, F. H., Enumeration of isobaric inherent structures for the fragile glass former o-terphenyl. J. Phys. Chem. B102,2807 (1998). 

Studying structures of liquids is a slow and thankless task, so you need to start when you are young if you want to give yourself time to get somewhere For a start, there are very few techniques available. NMR studies can give valuable information about structures of simple compounds in solutions in liquid crystals (Section 4.15), but otherwise the diffraction methods and EXAFS (Section 10.15) are the only generally available techniques. It is not difficult to collect diffraction data it can be done relatively easily using electrons. X-rays or neutrons. The hard part is to know what to do with the data once they have been obtained and how to interpret the results. It is the inherent structural complexity of liquids and glasses that makes their stmcture so extremely difficult to determine [16]. 

S. Sastry. Inherent structure approach to the study of glass forming liquids. Nature, 409 164, 2001. 

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