Curie-Weiss behavior of liquid structure and ideal glass state

C W Ryu; W Dmowski; K F Kelton; G W Lee; E S Park; J R Morris; T Egami

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-54758-y

Curie-Weiss behavior of liquid structure and ideal glass state

Sci Rep. 2019 Dec 9;9(1):18579. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54758-y.

Authors

C W Ryu^{1

2}, W Dmowski¹, K F Kelton³, G W Lee^{4

5}, E S Park², J R Morris^{6

7}, T Egami^{8

9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA.
² Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Physics and Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
⁴ Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejon, 34113, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Department of Nano Science, University of Science and Technology, Daejon, 34113, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.
⁷ Ames Laboratory, Ames, IA, 50011, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA. egami@utk.edu.
⁹ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA. egami@utk.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA. egami@utk.edu.

Abstract

We present the results of a structural study of metallic alloy liquids from high temperature through the glass transition. We use high energy X-ray scattering and electro-static levitation in combination with molecular dynamics simulation and show that the height of the first peak of the structure function, S(Q) - 1, follows the Curie-Weiss law. The structural coherence length is proportional to the height of the first peak, and we suggest that its increase with cooling may be related to the rapid increase in viscosity. The Curie temperature is negative, implying an analogy with spin-glass. The Curie-Weiss behavior provides a pathway to an ideal glass state, a state with long-range correlation without lattice periodicity, which is characterized by highly diverse local structures, reminiscent of spin-glass.