J. C. Martinez-Garcia

A universal description of ultraslow glass dynamics.

The dynamics of glass is of importance in materials science but its nature has not yet been fully understood. Here we report that a verification of the temperature dependencies of the primary relaxation time or viscosity in the ultraslowing/ultraviscous domain of glass-forming systems can be carried out via the analysis of the inverse of the Dyre–Olsen temperature index. The subsequent analysis of experimental data indicates the possibility of the self-consistent description of glass-forming low-molecular-weight liquids, polymers, liquid crystals, orientationally disordered crystals and Ising spin-glass-like systems, as well as the prevalence of equations associated with the ‘finite temperature divergence’. All these lead to a new formula for the configurational entropy in glass-forming systems. Furthermore, a link to the dominated local symmetry for a given glass former is identified here. Results obtained show a new relationship between the glass transition and critical phenomena.

Disentangling the secondary relaxations in the orientationally disordered mixed crystals: cycloheptanol + cyclooctanol two-component system

The dynamics of the pure compounds and mixed crystals formed between cycloheptanol (cC7-ol) and cyclooctanol (cC8-ol) has been studied by means of broadband dielectric spectroscopy at temperatures near and above the orientational glass transition temperature. Both compounds are known to display at least one orientationally disordered (OD) phase of simple cubic symmetry, and within this phase, a continuous formation of mixed crystals was demonstrated in the past (Rute, M. A. et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2003, 107, 5914). The dielectric loss spectra of cC7-ol and cC8-ol show, in addition to the well-pronounced alpha-relaxation peaks with a continuous temperature shift (characteristic of the freezing of the molecular dynamics), secondary relaxations (beta and gamma for cC8-ol and gamma for cC7-ol) which are intramolecular in nature. The dynamics of several OD mixed crystals was recently studied (Singh, L. P.; Murthy, S. S. N. J. Phys. Chem. B 2008, 112, 2606), and surprisingly enough one of the secondary relaxations was not evidenced. We show here by means of a careful set of measurements for several mixed crystals and of a detailed analysis procedure the existence of the secondary relaxations for the mixed crystals. The results, moreover, doubtless reinforce the physical origin of each of the secondary relaxations.

Prevalence for the universal distribution of relaxation times near the glass transitions in experimental model systems: Rodlike liquid crystals and orientationally disordered crystals

Recently, Nielsen et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 130, 154508 (2009); Philos. Mag. 88, 4101 (2008)] demonstrated a universal pattern for the high frequency wing of the loss curve for primary relaxation time on approaching the glass transition for organic liquids. In this contribution it is presented that a similar universality occurs for glass-forming liquid crystals and orientationally disordered crystals (plastic crystals). Empirical correlations of the found behavior are also briefly discussed.

Nonlinear dielectric effect in supercritical diethyl ether

Nonlinear dielectric effect (NDE) describes changes of dielectric permittivity induced by a strong electric field in a liquid dielectric. The most classical finding related to this magnitude is the negative sign of NDE in liquid diethyl ether (DEE), recalled by Peter Debye in his Nobel Prize lecture. This article shows that the positive sign of NDE in DEE is also possible, in the supercritical domain. Moreover, NDE on approaching the gas-liquid critical point exhibits a unique critical effect described by the critical exponent ψ ≈ 0.4 close to critical temperature (T(C)) and ψ ≈ 0.6 remote from T(C). This can be linked to the emergence of the mean-field behavior in the immediate vicinity of T(C), contrary to the typical pattern observed for critical phenomena. The multi-frequency mode of NDE measurements made it possible to estimate the evolution of lifetime of critical fluctuations. The new way of data analysis made it possible to describe the critical effect without a knowledge of the non-critical background contribution in prior.

A new system for local area measurements in a pulsed field magnetometer

This paper describes a new measuring system to perform local area magnetization measurements on the surface of a magnetic sample in a pulsed field magnetometer at room temperature. A commercial point pick-up coil is used to detect the induction signal along the radius of samples with cylindrical or disc shapes. The relationship between the induced voltage and the sample geometry is treated and a calibration procedure is proposed to obtain the magnetization values in physical units for the case when the point pick-up coil is at the centre of the sample. The local demagnetizing factor is obtained using the measurement of the local anisotropy field applying the single-point detection (SPD) technique. The measurement of this SPD singularity detected in the transverse reversible susceptibility, using a sample with cubic geometry, is demonstrated for the first time in this type of magnetometer. The application of the system for the investigation of commercial permanent magnets is illustrated, and the advantages and disadvantages are discussed.