Disorder-assisted melting and the glass transition in amorphous solids

TL;DR

This paper presents a theory explaining the melting transition in amorphous solids as driven by disorder-induced nonaffine atomic motions, predicting a square-root vanishing of shear modulus at the critical temperature, aligning with simulations and experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework that attributes melting in amorphous solids to nonaffine displacements caused by disorder, differing from traditional thermal vibration explanations.

Findings

Predicts shear modulus vanishes as mp;sqrt;T_c - T at criticality.

Aligns with recent numerical simulations of amorphous solids.

Agrees with classic data on amorphous polymer melting.

Abstract

The mechanical response of solids depends on temperature because the way atoms and molecules respond collectively to deformation is affected at various levels by thermal motion. This is a fundamental problem of solid state science and plays a crucial role in metallurgy, aerospace engineering, energy. In glasses the vanishing of rigidity upon increasing temperature is the reverse process of the glass transition. It remains poorly understood due to the disorder leading to nontrivial (nonaffine) components in the atomic displacements. Our theory explains the basic mechanism of the melting transition of amorphous (disordered) solids in terms of the lattice energy lost to this nonaffine motion, compared to which thermal vibrations turn out to play only a negligible role. It predicts the square-root vanishing of the shear modulus $G\sim\sqrt{T_{c}-T}$ at criticality observed in the most recent numerical simulation study. The theory is also in good agreement with classic data on melting of amorphous polymers (for which no alternative theory can be found in the literature) and offers new opportunities in materials science.