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- Title
Materials science: A hard look at glass.
- Authors
Madden, Paul
- Abstract
This article reports that the topology of amorphous glasses has generally been considered only at the level of atoms and their nearest neighbours. Most liquids, as they are cooled, arrange themselves so as to minimize the interaction energy between their constituent molecules--they crystallize, forming a solid in which the molecules are held in a periodic lattice with long-range order. A glassy material is rigid too, but the arrangement of its molecules is aperiodic and does not minimize the energy of the structure. Compared with a crystalline structure, the molecules in a normal liquid will be found at any given instant in a disordered, high-energy configuration--although at the level of the nearest neighbours the structure is almost always similar to that adopted in the solid.
- Subjects
GLASS; AMORPHOUS substances; OPTICAL instruments; PHYSICAL &; theoretical chemistry; HYDROSTATICS
- Publication
Nature, 2005, Vol 435, Issue 7038, p35
- ISSN
0028-0836
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/435035a