Scientists Discover New Class of Glassy Material

Dynamic frustration has been found to be the cause of glassy behavior in materials that previously had none of the features of a normal glass.

“This has been a puzzle for 10 years now,” Argonne physicist Raymond Osborn said.

Conventional wisdom states that glassy materials, such as common window glass, result when frustration prevents the atoms from forming a well-ordered crystal structure, and the material freezes into a disordered state like a frozen liquid.

In spin glasses, it is the magnetic moments on each atom, rather than the atoms themselves, that freeze into a disordered state at low temperatures, so that they point in random directions. However, there has to be some disorder in the atomic structure and some frustration in the magnetic interactions which prevents the magnetic moments from ordering so that they can freeze into spin glasses.

Scientists have struggled for more than a decade to understand why PrAu2Si2 is a spin glass. There is no sign of atomic disorder in the compound and, no reason for the magnetic interactions to be frustrated.

Using the results of neutron scattering experiments, Osborn and his collaborators concluded the frustration results from temporal or dynamic frustration rather static frustration.

Although PrAu2Si2 seems to have an ordered structure, by delving deeper, Osborn found that the magnetic moments are continually fluctuating in magnitude causing the equivalent of temporal potholes that appear and then disappear long enough to disrupt the magnetic alignment.

These fluctuations occur because the magnetic moments in this material are unstable and can be destroyed temporarily by electrons scattering off the atoms.

“The discovery of dynamic frustration reveals a whole new class of glassy materials whose behavior is governed by dynamic rather than static disorder,” Osborn said.

This discovery may allow scientists to tune the degree of frustration and therefore develop a better understanding of how glasses are formed in nature.

Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The mission of the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program – a multipurpose, scientific research effort – is to foster and support fundamental research to expand the scientific foundations for new and improved energy technologies and for understanding and mitigating the environmental impacts of energy use.

A paper on Osborn's work can be seen in the upcoming edition of Nature Physics.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory brings the world’s brightest scientists and engineers together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline.

Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Media Contact

Brock Cooper Newswise Science News

More Information:

http://www.anl.gov

All latest news from the category: Physics and Astronomy

This area deals with the fundamental laws and building blocks of nature and how they interact, the properties and the behavior of matter, and research into space and time and their structures.

innovations-report provides in-depth reports and articles on subjects such as astrophysics, laser technologies, nuclear, quantum, particle and solid-state physics, nanotechnologies, planetary research and findings (Mars, Venus) and developments related to the Hubble Telescope.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors