Vitrification of a monatomic 2D simple liquid

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the vitrification of a 2D monatomic liquid using rapid cooling in simulations, revealing a long-lived glassy state below a specific temperature and mapping the transformation times to crystallization.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based approach to vitrify a 2D monatomic liquid and characterizes the temperature-dependent crystallization dynamics.

Findings

Shortest transformation time occurs at 14% below melting temperature.

Below Tv = 0.6 Tm, crystallization time exceeds simulation time.

A long-lived glassy state is achieved for T < Tv.

Abstract

A monatomic simple liquid in two dimensions, where atoms interact isotropically through the Lennard-Jones-Gauss potential [M. Engel and H.-R. Trebin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 225505 (2007)], is vitrified by the use of a rapid cooling technique in a molecular dynamics simulation. Transformation to a crystalline state is investigated at various temperatures and the time-temperature-transformation (TTT) curve is determined. It is found that the transformation time to a crystalline state is the shortest at a temerature 14% below the melting temperature Tm and that at temperatures below Tv = 0.6 Tm the transformation time is much longer than the available CPU time. This indicates that a long-lived glassy state is realized for T < Tv.