Molecule ‘gridlock’ becomes glass [video]
Physicists have made a movie of particle motion as a super-cooled liquid approaches the glass state—a first look at the molecular level of this mysterious process.
“When the hot molten liquid that forms a glass cools down, it’s not just that the viscosity becomes enormous, growing by a factor of a billion, there is something different about how the molecules are moving,” says Emory University physicist Eric Weeks.
“We wanted to set up an experiment that would allow us to see that movement, but spheres move differently than irregular shapes.”
Full story at Futurity.
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