Local Dynamics and the Glass Transition

What is the main feature distinguishing the dynamic behaviour of a glassforming system and a simple liquid Let us follow the time evolution of a given correlation function 4 t) of a glass former for different temperatures, as schematically shown in Fig. 4.1a. At a high temperature (e.g. above the 1 ), like Ti in the figure, 4 t) decays in a single step at times of the order of picoseconds - a behaviour expected for a simple liquid. If the system is cooled 

Thereby, the features of the a-relaxation observed by different techniques are different projections of the actual structural a-relaxation. Since the glass transition occurs when this relaxation freezes, the investigation of the dynamics of this process is of crucial interest in order to understand the intriguing phenomenon of the glass transition. The only microscopic theory available to date dealing with this transition is the so-called mode coupling theory (MCT) (see, e.g. [95,96,106] and references therein) recently, landscape models (see, e.g. [107-110]) have also been proposed to account for some of its features. 

In the case of polymers, the a-relaxation has been well characterized for many years, e.g. by dielectric spectroscopy and mechanical relaxation (see, e.g. [34, 111]).The main experimental features extracted from relaxation spectroscopies are  

The time-temperature superposition, implying that the functional form does not appreciably depend on temperature (see e.g. [34, 111]). For instance, mechanical or rheological data corresponding to different temperatures can usually be superimposed if their time/frequency scales are shifted properly taking a given temperature Tr as reference. 

The non-Arrhenius temperature-dependence of the relaxation time. It shows a dramatic increase when the glass transition temperature region is approached. This temperature dependence is usually well described in terms of the so called Vogel-Fulcher temperature dependence [114,115]  

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