Numerical investigation of the influence of the history on the local structure of glasses

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics and Voronoi tessellation to explore how the thermal history affects the local structure of glasses, revealing that the structure at low temperature depends on the intermediate temperature at which quenching was interrupted.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the influence of thermal history on glass structure using simulations, highlighting the dependence near the glass transition temperature.

Findings

Local structure depends on the intermediate temperature $T_i$

Dependence is stronger near the glass transition temperature

Crystallization effects limit observations in soft-sphere glasses

Abstract

By means of molecular dynamics simulations and the Voronoi tessellation, we study the influence of the history on the low temperature characteristics of soft sphere and silica glasses. The quench from the liquid is interrupted at an intermediate temperature $T_i$ for a given relaxation time, and then the cooling process is continued down to 0K. The local structure at 0K depends on the temperature $T_i$ and the effect is larger for $T_i$ close to the glass transition temperature $T_g$. This dependence, coherent with recent results, is expected in the strong glass former where the characteristics of a particular state depend on its history. In the soft-sphere case, because of crystallization effects, the dependence of the local structure of the glassy samples on their history can only be detected in the supercooled liquid region.