Numerical investigation of glassy dynamics in low-density systems

Vitrification in colloidal systems typically occurs at high densities driven by sharply varying, short-ranged interactions. The possibility of glassy behavior arising from smoothly varying, long-ranged particle interactions has received relatively little attention. Here we investigate the behavior of screened charged particles, and explicitly demonstrate that these systems exhibit glassy properties in the regime of low temperature and low density. Properties close to this low-density (Wigner) glass transition share many features with their hard-sphere counterparts, but differ in quantitative aspects that may be accounted for via microscopic theoretical considerations.     

(Sr,Mn)TiO3: a magnetoelectric multiglass

By close analogy with multiferroic materials with coexisting long-range electric and magnetic orders a "multiglass" scenario of two different glassy states is observed in Sr(0.98)Mn(0.02)TiO(3) ceramics. Sr-site substituted Mn2+ ions are at the origin of both a polar and a spin glass with glass temperatures T(g) approximately equal to 38 K and < or =34 K, respectively. The structural freezing triggers that of the spins, and both glassy systems show individual memory effects. Thanks to strong spin-phonon interaction within the incipient ferroelectric host crystal SrTiO3, large higher order magnetoelectric coupling occurs between both glass systems.     

Correlations in binary liquid and glassy metals

It is shown, starting from a nearly-free electron approximation, how correlations can occur in the atomic positions of binary liquid and glassy alloys. In particular, it follows from energy considerations that for an alloy of a transition metal with a metalloid there is a concentration region where there should be no metalloid-metalloid nearest neighbors. This concentration region is just the same as that where glass formation is often observed in these systems.     

Pressure induced quantum critical point and non-fermi-liquid behavior in BaVS3

We report on experiments giving evidence for quantum effects of electromagnetic flux in barium alumosilicate glass. In contrast to expectation, below 100 mK the dielectric response becomes sensitive to magnetic fields. The experimental findings include both lifting of the dielectric saturation by weak magnetic fields and oscillations of the dielectric response in the low temperature resonant regime. As the origin of these effects we suggest that the magnetic induction field violates the time reversal invariance leading to a flux periodicity in the energy levels of tunneling systems. At low temperatures, this effect is strongly enhanced by the interaction between tunneling systems and thus becomes measurable.     

Gels and glasses in a single system: evidence for an intricate free-energy landscape of glassy materials

In the free-energy landscape picture of glassy systems, their slow dynamics is due to a complicated free-energy landscape with many local minima. We show that for a colloidal glassy material multiple paths can be taken through the free-energy landscape. The evolution of the nonergodicity parameter shows two distinct master curves that we identify as gels and glasses. We show that for a range of colloid concentrations, the transition to nonergodicity can occur in either direction (gel or glass), accompanied by "hesitations" between the two. Thus, colloidal gels and glasses are merely global free-energy minima in the same free-energy landscape, and the paths leading to these minima can be complicated.     

Atomic mechanism of the heating-induced phase transitions of the simple monatomic glasses

Atomic mechanism of the heating-induced phase transitions of the monatomic Lennard-Jones (LJ) glass has been studied via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Monatomic LJ glass was heated up at two different heating rates, crystallization occurs at the lowest one and further heating leads to the melting of LJ crystal. Thermodynamics of the phase transitions and corresponding evolution of structural properties upon heating have been analyzed in details. Atomic mechanism of a crystallization of the glassy state was monitored via spatio-temporal arrangements of the atoms involved in the 1421 bond-pair of the fcc crystalline structure. The 1421 bond-pair was detected via the Honeycutt-Andersen analysis [J.D. Honeycutt, H.C. Andersen, J. Phys. Chem. 91 (1987) 4950]. We found that crystallization of the monatomic LJ glass occurs via homogeneous local rearrangements of atoms in the glassy matrix and we found an important role of the liquid-like atoms (existed in the glassy state) in crystallization of the system. In addition, spatio-temporal arrangements of the liquid-like atoms in the system upon further heating were shown in order to clarify the atomic mechanism of a melting of the obtained LJ crystal. Liquid-like atoms were defined by the Lindemann melting criterion. Our results provide previously un-reported data and give deeper understanding of the heating-induced phase transitions in the less stable metallic glasses, which have been observed in practice.     

A comparative study of local quantum Fisher information and local quantum uncertainty in Heisenberg XY model

Recently, it has been shown that the quantum Fisher information via local observables and via local measurements (i.e., local quantum Fisher information (LQFI)) is a central concept in quantum estimation and quantum metrology and captures the quantumness of correlations in multi-component quantum system (Kim et al. (2018) [28]). This new discord-like measure is very similar to the quantum correlations measure called local quantum uncertainty (LQU). In the present study, we have revealed that LQU is bounded by LQFI in the phase estimation protocol. Also, a comparative study between these two quantum correlations quantifiers is addressed for the quantum Heisenberg XY model. Two distinct situations are considered. The first one concerns the anisotropic XY model and the second situation concerns isotropic XY model submitted to an external magnetic field. Our results confirm that LQFI reveals more quantum correlations than LQU.     

Direct observation of geometrical phase transitions in mesoscopic superconductors by scanning tunneling microscopy

Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we mapped the distribution of the local density of states in a single crystal superconductor heterostructure with an array of submicron normal metal islands. We observe the coexistence of strongly interacting multiquanta vortex lattice with interstitial Abrikosov vortices. The newly formed composite magnetic flux structure undergoes a series of phase transitions between different topological configuration states. The vortex configuration states are strongly dependent on the number of flux quanta and the nanoscale confinement architecture of the mesoscopic superconductor. Here, we present images of vortex phase transitions due to confinement effects when the number of magnetic flux quanta in the system changes. The vortex dynamics in these systems could serve as a model for behavior of confined many-body systems when the number of particles changes.     

Simulation of flux lines with columnar pins: bose glass and entangled liquids

Using path integral Monte Carlo we simulate a 3D system of up to 1000 magnetic flux lines by mapping it onto interacting bosons in (2+1)D. With increasing temperatures we find first order melting from an ordered solid to an entangled liquid signaled by a finite entropy jump and sharp discontinuities of the defect density and the structure factor S(G). For a particular density of strong columnar pins the crystal is transformed into a Bose glass phase with patches of crystalline order disrupted by the trapped vortices at the pinning sites but with no overall positional or orientational order. This glassy phase melts into a defected entangled liquid through a continuous transition.     

A new polaronic order-disorder phase transition in magnetite as observed through μSR

Recent μSR measurements on the Mott-Wigner glass, magnetite, as a function of temperature and external magnetic field have shown the existence of two inequivalent magnetic sites below T_A=247K. These data are being interpreted in terms of the onset or destruction of local order manifested as local atomic correlations (molecular polarons).     

Universal behavior of the resistance noise across the metal-insulator transition in silicon inversion layers

Studies of low-frequency resistance noise show that the glassy freezing of the two-dimensional (2D) electron system in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition occurs in all Si inversion layers. The size of the metallic glass phase, which separates the 2D metal and the (glassy) insulator, depends strongly on disorder, becoming extremely small in high-mobility samples. The behavior of the second spectrum, an important fourth-order noise statistic, indicates the presence of long-range correlations between fluctuators in the glassy phase, consistent with the hierarchical picture of glassy dynamics.     

非晶中结构遗传性及描述

非晶态物质广泛存在于人们的日常生活和工业生产活动中,但人们对其原子结构及其结构与性能关系的认识还远不如对晶体材料那样充分.非晶态物质的原子结构不具备空间平移对称性,这使得传统针对晶体材料的实验技术和手段无法直接有效地应用到非晶态物质的结构分析中.用常规的衍射实验数据分析方法并不能直接地观察到非晶态物质的本征结构特征,但这些实验衍射数据往往隐含有极其重要的微观结构信息.本文简要综述了这些衍射数据背后所隐含的与金属玻璃中程序相关的结构信息.研究发现,非晶态物质中的一类隐含序与晶体结构中的球周期序紧密相关,意味着非晶态物质与晶体材料之间在原子结构上存在着非凡的同源性.进一步的研究结果还表明,不同隐含拓扑序之间纠缠的强弱与体系本身的玻璃形成能力存在明显的对应关系,这为衡量金属合金玻璃形成能力强弱的经验规律——混乱原理提供了微观结构上的理解,同时为进一步深入认识和理解非晶态材料衍射数据所隐含的微观结构信息提供了新的分析思路和方法.     

Transport anomalies in glasses

We discuss a recently developed random walk model for ionic transport in glass, which offers a simple explanation to the so far unexplained transport anomalies in glassy ionic conductors: The set of anomalies combined under the name mixed alkali effect and the drastic increase of the ionic conductivity with the concentration of mobile ions. The model is based on the experimental evidence that ions maintain their distinct local environments and leads to the formation of fluctuating structural pathways. The connectivity of these pathways determines the ion mobility in the glassy network.     

Nanoscale electrostatic manipulation of magnetic flux quanta in ferroelectric/superconductor BiFeO3/YBa2Cu3O(7-δ) heterostructures

Using heterostructures that combine a large-polarization ferroelectric (BiFeO3) and a high-temperature superconductor (YBa2Cu3O(7-δ)), we demonstrate the modulation of the superconducting condensate at the nanoscale via ferroelectric field effects. Through this mechanism, a nanoscale pattern of normal regions that mimics the ferroelectric domain structure can be created in the superconductor. This yields an energy landscape for magnetic flux quanta and, in turn, couples the local ferroelectric polarization to the local magnetic induction. We show that this form of magnetoelectric coupling, together with the possibility to reversibly design the ferroelectric domain structure, allows the electrostatic manipulation of magnetic flux quanta.     

LaGa-based bulk metallic glasses

We report the formation of La Ga-based bulk metallic glasses. Ternary La–Ga–Cu glassy rods of 2–3 mm in diameter can be easily formed in a wide composition range by the conventional copper mold casting method. With minor addition of extra elements such as Co, Ni, Fe, Nb, Y, and Zr, the critical diameter of the full glassy rods of the La–Ga–Cu matrix can be markedly enhanced to at least 5 mm. The characteristics and properties of these new La Ga-based bulk metallic glasses with excellent glass formation ability and low glass transition temperature are model systems for fundamental issues investigation and could have some potential applications in micromachining field.     

Time dependent local field distribution and metastable states in the SK-spin-glass

Different sets of metastable states can be reached in glassy systems below some transition temperature depending on initial conditions and details of the dynamics. This is investigated for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass model with long ranged interactions. In particular, the time dependent local field distribution and energy are calculated for zero temperature. This is done for a system quenched to zero temperature, slow cooling or simulated annealing, a greedy algorithm and repeated tapping. Results are obtained from Monte-Carlo simulations and a Master-Fokker-Planck approach. A comparison with replica symmetry broken theory, evaluated in high orders, shows that the energies obtained via dynamics are higher than the ground state energy of replica theory. Tapping and simulated annealing yield on the other hand results which are very close to the ground state energy. The local field distribution tends to zero for small fields. This is in contrast to the Edwards flat measure hypothesis. The distribution of energies obtained for different tapping strengths does again not follow the canonical form proposed by Edwards.     

Microscopic description of an Ising spin glass near the percolation threshold

Monte Carlo results using a microscopic model to describe FexZn(1-x)F2 indicate that its spin-glass phase at x=0.25 and zero magnetic field is characterized by the presence of antiferromagnetic fractal domains, separated by random vacancies and strongly correlated in time. The effective local random-field distribution corroborates this glassy behavior, which emerges irrespective of ab initio competing interactions and is a consequence of the fractal domain structure near the percolation threshold, x(p)=0.24. The aging properties of the system are in agreement with predictions of short-range stochastic spin-glass models and with the droplets model for spin glass close to percolation.     

Atomic mechanism of vitrification process in simple monatomic nanoparticles *

Glass formation in simple monatomic nanoparticles has been studied by molecular dynamics simulations in spherical model with a free surface. Models have been obtained by cooling from the melt toward glassy state. Atomic mechanism of glass formation was monitored via spatio-temporal arrangement of solid-like and liquid-like atoms in nanoparticles. We use Lindemann freezing-like criterion for identification of solid-like atoms which occur randomly in supercooled region. Their number grows intensively with decreasing temperature and they form clusters. Subsequently, single percolation solid-like cluster occurs at temperature above the glass transition. Glass transition occurs when atoms aggregated into this single percolation cluster are in majority in the system to form relatively rigid glassy state. Solid-like domain is forming in the center of nanoparticles and grows outward to the surface. We found temperature dependence of potential energy, mean-squared displacement (MSD) of atoms, diffusion constant, incoherent intermediate scattering function, radial distribution function (RDF), local bond-pair orders detected by Honeycutt-Andersen analysis, radial density profile and radial atomic displacement distributions in nanoparticles. We found that liquid-like atoms in models obtained below glass transition have a tendency to concentrate in the surface layer of nanoparticles. However, they do not form a purely liquid-like surface layer coated nanoparticles.