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Amorphous materials

Glasses with liquid-like surfaces

Nature Materials volume 2, pages 645–646 (2003)Cite this article

The glass transition is a central concept in condensed matter physics, yet for ten years there has been an unresolved debate about what happens when the material thickness reaches nanoscale dimensions. New experiments probe below the surface.

Anyone who has ever melted a plastic ruler has seen a glass transition in action — the change from a glassy solid to a viscous liquid that occurs when many materials, including amorphous polymers, are heated up. But an intriguing aspect of the glass transition was discovered only ten years ago; it turns out that surprisingly large, thickness-dependent shifts in the glass-transition temperature occur in very thin films of glass-forming materials, such as non-crystallizing polymers. In the most studied case, polystyrene, the glass-transition temperature can be suppressed by tens of degrees for films with thicknesses of tens of nanometres1.

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Figure 1: Snapshot of the surface of a glassy polymer at a temperature a little below its bulk glass temperature.

References

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  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield, S3 7RH, UK

    Richard A.L. Jones

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  1. Richard A.L. Jones
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Jones, R. Glasses with liquid-like surfaces. Nature Mater 2, 645–646 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat986

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat986

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