February 29
@
12:20 PM
–
1:20 PM
Materials Science Seminar Series presents Theoretical Physicist Ludovic Berthier on Thursday, February 29, from 12:20 to 1:20 p.m. The seminar is hosted by Professor Paul Voyles and will be held in MS&E building room 265. Dr. Berthier will be discussing glass as a state of matter.
Abstract
Glass is everywhere. We use and are surrounded by glass objects which we then naturally consider as a distinct state of matter. Yet, glass as we know it is obtained by rapidly cooling a liquid below its melting point to avoid crystallisation. The viscosity of this supercooled liquid increases by many orders of magnitude upon cooling, until the liquid becomes arrested on experimental timescales below the glass “transition” temperature. From a structural viewpoint, the resulting glass very much resembles the disordered liquid, but from a mechanical viewpoint, it is as rigid as an ordered crystal. Does glass qualify as a separate state of matter? I will provide a pedagogical perspective on this question using basic statistical mechanical concepts. I will review recent theoretical results suggesting why and how an “ideal” glass can be defined as a separate equilibrium state of matter and discuss modern computer simulations trying to analyze this glass state. I will close with some experimental perspectives.
Bio
Ludovic Berthier is a theoretical physicist, working at CNRS & University of Montpellier in France. He uses statistical mechanics and computer simulations to study the physics of disordered materials, complex fluids and active matter. In particular, he developed efficient numerical methods to understand the glass transition of molecular liquids and study the physical properties of amorphous solids.
Materials Science Seminar Series – Dr. Ludovic Berthier