Emergence of Crystal-like Atomic Dynamics in Glasses at the Nanometer Scale

Baldi, G.; Zanatta, M.; Gilioli, E.; Milman, V.; Refson, K.; Wehinger, Björn; Winkler, B.; Fontana, A.; Monaco, G.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.185503

Scientific article

English

Emergence of Crystal-like Atomic Dynamics in Glasses at the Nanometer Scale

Contributors

Baldi, G.; Zanatta, M.; Gilioli, E.; Milman, V.; Refson, K.; Wehinger, Björn; Winkler, B.; Fontana, A.; Monaco, G.

Published in

Physical review letters, vol. 110, 185503

Publication date

2013

Abstract

The vibrational dynamics of a permanently densified silica glass is compared to the one of an α-quartz polycrystal, the silica polymorph of the same density and local structure. The combined use of inelastic x-ray scattering experiments and ab initio numerical calculations provides compelling evidence of a transition, in the glass, from the isotropic elastic response at long wavelengths to a microscopic regime as the wavelength decreases below a characteristic length ξ of a few nanometers, corresponding to about 20 interatomic distances. In the microscopic regime the glass vibrations closely resemble those of the polycrystal, with excitations related to the acoustic and optic modes of the crystal. A coherent description of the experimental results is obtained assuming that the elastic modulus of the glass presents spatial heterogeneities of an average size a∼ξ/2π.

Keywords

Vibrational dynamics
Alpha-quartz
Densified silica glass
Inelastic x-ray scattering
Ab initio lattice dynamics

UNIGE affiliation entities

Not a UNIGE publication

Citation (ISO format)

BALDI, G. et al. Emergence of Crystal-like Atomic Dynamics in Glasses at the Nanometer Scale. In: Physical review letters, 2013, vol. 110, p. 185503. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.185503

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:48339
DOI : 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.185503

Journal ISSN

0031-9007

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17/03/2015 13:44:00

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17/03/2015 13:44:00

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14/03/2023 23:02:56

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14/03/2023 23:02:55

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30/10/2024 23:35:19

Emergence of Crystal-like Atomic Dynamics in Glasses at the Nanometer Scale

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

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Identifiers

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation