Within the framework of the mode-coupling theory of super-cooled liquids, we investigate new phenomena in colloidal systems on approach to their glass transitions. When the inter-particle potential contains an attractive part, besides the usual repulsive hard core, two intersecting liquid-glass transition lines appear, one of which extends to low densities, while the other one, at high densitie...

The dependence of the glass transition temperature on silicate composition as well as on borate composition is discussed. Some new experimental results on borosilicate glass-enamels are put together with the existing literature data. It is demonstrated that in the glass transition interval the activation energy E(Tg) for viscous flow is related to the glass transition temperature. The activatio...

We use molecular dynamics simulations to show that glass transition in a model phase separating amorphous alloy, Cu(50)Nb(50), occurs by gelation. At the glass transition, a mechanically stiff, percolating network of atoms with icosahedral local packing forms at the interfaces between compositionally enriched regions. This low-energy network halts coarsening of the phase-separated structure and...

Recently it has been revealed that when approaching the glass-transition temperature, T(g), the dynamics of a liquid not only drastically slows down, but also becomes progressively more heterogeneous. From our simulations and experiments of six different glass-forming liquids, we find that the heterogeneous dynamics is a result of critical-like fluctuations of static structural order, contrary ...

Spin-glass and chiral-glass orderings of a three-dimensional isotropic Heisenberg spin glass are studied both by equilibrium and off-equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations with emphasis on their dynamical aspects. The model is found to exhibit a finite-temperature chiral-glass transition without the conventional spin-glass order. Although chirality is an Ising-like quantity from symmetry, universa...

We study-using molecular dynamics simulations-the temperature dependence of the dynamics in a dense short-ranged attractive colloidal glass to find evidence of the kinetic glass-glass transition predicted by the ideal mode coupling theory. According to the theory, the two distinct glasses are stabilized, one by excluded volume and the other by short-ranged attractive interactions. By studying t...

Vitrification is a process in which a liquid begins to behave as a solid during cooling without any substantial change in molecular arrangement or thermodynamic state variables. The physical phenomenon of vitrification is relevant to both cryopreservation by freezing, in which cells survive in glass between ice crystals, and cryopreservation by vitrification in which a whole sample is vitrified...

Organic solar cells with a high degree of thermal stability require bulk-heterojunction blends that feature a high glass transition, which must occur considerably above the temperatures encountered during device fabrication and operation. Here, we demonstrate for the first time a polymer : fullerene blend with a glass transition temperature above 200 C, which we determine by plasmonic nanospect...

Facilitated spin models were introduced some decades ago to mimic systems characterized by a glass transition. Recent developments have shown that a class of facilitated spin models is also able to reproduce characteristic signatures of the structural relaxation properties of glass-forming liquids. While the equilibrium phase diagram of these models can be calculated analytically, the dynamics ...

The postulated glass-liquid transition of low density amorphous ice (LDA) is investigated with deuteron NMR stimulated echo experiments. Such experiments give access to ultra-slow reorientations of water molecules on time scales expected for structural relaxation of glass formers close to the glass-liquid transition temperature. An involved data analysis is necessary to account for signal contr...