Stringlike Cooperative Motion in a Supercooled Liquid

Claudio Donati; Jack F. Douglas; Walter Kob; Steven J. Plimpton; Peter H. Poole; Sharon C. Glotzer

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.2338

Stringlike Cooperative Motion in a Supercooled Liquid

Claudio Donati, Jack F. Douglas, Walter Kob, Steven J. Plimpton, Peter H. Poole, and Sharon C. Glotzer

Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2338 – Published 16 March 1998

Abstract

Extensive molecular dynamics simulations are performed on a glass-forming Lennard-Jones mixture to determine the nature of the cooperative motions occurring in this model fragile liquid. We observe stringlike cooperative molecular motion (“strings”) at temperatures well above the glass transition. The mean length of the strings increases upon cooling, and the string length distribution is found to be nearly exponential.

Received 27 October 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.2338

Authors & Affiliations

Claudio Donati¹, Jack F. Douglas^1,2, Walter Kob³, Steven J. Plimpton⁴, Peter H. Poole⁵, and Sharon C. Glotzer^1,2,*

¹Center for Theoretical and Computational Materials Science, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899
²Polymers Division, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899
³Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Staudinger Weg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany
⁴Parallel Computational Sciences Department, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1111
⁵Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada