Glasses can be formed by many routes. In some cases, distinct polyamorphic forms are found. The normal mode of glass formation is cooling of a viscous liquid. Liquid behavior during cooling is classified between "strong" and "fragile," and the three canonical characteristics of relaxing liquids are correlated through the fragility. Strong liquids become fragile liquids on compression. In some cases, such conversions occur during cooling by a weak first-order transition. This behavior can be related to the polymorphism in a glass state through a recent simple modification of the van der Waals model for tetrahedrally bonded liquids. The sudden loss of some liquid degrees of freedom through such first-order transitions is suggestive of the polyamorphic transition between native and denatured hydrated proteins, which can be interpreted as single-chain glass-forming polymers plasticized by water and cross-linked by hydrogen bonds. The onset of a sharp change in d dT( is the Debye-Waller factor and T is temperature) in proteins, which is controversially indentified with the glass transition in liquids, is shown to be general for glass formers and observable in computer simulations of strong and fragile ionic liquids, where it proves to be close to the experimental glass transition temperature. The latter may originate in strong anharmonicity in modes ("bosons"), which permits the system to access multiple minima of its configuration space. These modes, the Kauzmann temperature T(K), and the fragility of the liquid, may thus be connected.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/267/5206/1924.full.pdf

Formation of glasses from liquids and biopolymers.

The various origins of a frequency-dependent conductivity in amorphous semiconductors are reviewed, stressing particularly recent advances and the influences that factors such as correlation and non-random spatial distributions of electrically active centres can have on the a.c. conductivity. A comprehensive survey is given of the experimental a.c. data for two types of amorphous semiconductor, namely chalcogenide and pnictide materials. It is concluded that the a.c. behaviour at intermediate to high temperatures is well accounted for by the correlated-barrier-hopping model, whereas the low-temperature behaviour is probably due to atomic tunnelling.

A.c. conduction in amorphous chalcogenide and pnictide semiconductors

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are an emerging class of mixtures characterized by significant depressions in melting points compared to those of the neat constituent components. These materials are promising for applications as inexpensive "designer" solvents exhibiting a host of tunable physicochemical properties. A detailed review of the current literature reveals the lack of predictive understanding of the microscopic mechanisms that govern the structure-property relationships in this class of solvents. Complex hydrogen bonding is postulated as the root cause of their melting point depressions and physicochemical properties; to understand these hydrogen bonded networks, it is imperative to study these systems as dynamic entities using both simulations and experiments. This review emphasizes recent research efforts in order to elucidate the next steps needed to develop a fundamental framework needed for a deeper understanding of DESs. It covers recent developments in DES research, frames outstanding scientific questions, and identifies promising research thrusts aligned with the advancement of the field toward predictive models and fundamental understanding of these solvents.

Deep Eutectic Solvents: A Review of Fundamentals and Applications.

Impedance and dielectric spectroscopy revisited: Distinguishing localized relaxation from long-range conductivity

Influence of the Discretization Methods on the Distribution of Relaxation Times Deconvolution: Implementing Radial Basis Functions with DRTtools

A complex plane representation of dielectric and mechanical relaxation processes in some polymers

The α-dispersion in many polymer systems is the process to be associated with the glass transition temperature where many physical properties undergo drastic changes. We have measured and analyzed the complex dielectric behavior of the α-dispersions for five polymers [i.e., polycarbonate and polyisophthalate esters of bisphenol A, isotactic poly-(methyl methacrylate), poly(methyl acrylate), and a copolymer of phenyl methacrylate and acrylonitrile] and have found that the usual methods of analysis cannot be used to represent the data. However, it is possible to represent the relaxation process as the sum of two dispersions but there is no evidence to support this contention. An empirical expression is proposed to represent the data. This expression which takes the form of 



appears to be a general representation for the three known dispersions, i.e., Debye, circular arc, and skewed semicircle. The complex dielectric constants calculated with the aid of this expression and the parameters for each polymer system which was determined graphically were found to be in excellent agreement with the experimental complex dielectric constants. This method of representation was extended to sixteen α-dispersions reported in the literature always with excellent results.

A complex plane analysis of α‐dispersions in some polymer systems

On the equivalence of dielectric and mechanical dispersions in some polymers; e.g. poly(n-octyl methacrylate)☆

Following the suggestion of Scaife that the complex polarizability data ought to be used for comparing dielectric dispersion data, we constructed the mechanical analogue of the complex polarizability. The parameters used to represent the relaxation data of poly(n-hexyl methacrylate) in the two forms were determined. When the data are represented in this form, the relaxation times for the two processes proved to be the same. In addition, the shape parameters were found to be similar. This agreement is consistent with that obtained on other polymers elsewhere, and also implies that the molecular motional constants may be the same, so that the mechanism of polymer chain dynamics might be the same. The agreement also gives indirect support to Scaife's contention.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3727/2/9/313/pdf

S. Negami

Papers

A complex plane representation of dielectric and mechanical relaxation processes in some polymers

A complex plane analysis of α‐dispersions in some polymer systems

On the equivalence of dielectric and mechanical dispersions in some polymers; e.g. poly(n-octyl methacrylate)☆

On the equivalence of dielectric and mechanical dispersions in poly(n-hexyl methacrylate)