State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China
Abstract:
Glass and glassy state cover a wide range of applications. Different from liquid-crystal transition, glass transition is non-crystalline liquid-solid transition, which is not accompanied with obvious changes in structure. Therefore, we cannot classify it into any known type of phase transition. The research on the glass transition has become a key topic in condensed matter physics for several decades. However, the nature of glass state is still far away from being understood until now. Here we provide some basic physical phenomena of glass-forming systems during the glass transition, review some theoretical perspectives of the glass transition in the past few decades, and introduce some commonly used methods to investigate the structure and dynamics of glass formers, with an attempt to deepen the understanding of disordered solids and glass transition of readers.
