Thermodynamic aspects of glassy states

✍ Scribed by Hiroshi Suga

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 662 KB
• Volume: 81
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-7322
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-7322(99)00029-x

✦ Synopsis

Glasses are one representative of amorphous solids and characterized thermodynamically by the glass transition and residual entropy as indicative of their non-ergodic nature. Amorphous solids can be produced in various ways other than the traditional liquid quenching. Some methods use vapor as the starting state and some of them crystal. These non-traditional or exotic amorphous solids are difficult to differentiate structurally from the traditional glass of the same material. Thermal characterizations of amorphous solid are surveyed to show the differences in energy and entropy as well as in relaxation behavior from those of the corresponding liquid-quenched glass. A renewed concept of the glass transition is discussed in relation to glassy crystals recognized as a new state of aggregation of molecules.