Quenched-in liquid in glass

Abstract Glasses have long been considered as frozen liquids because of the similarity between their static amorphous structures. While modern theories about glass transition suggest that may result from supercooling a heterogeneous liquid contains fast and slow regions, it remains unclear whether such physical picture applies to metallic glasses, which are densely packed solid was once believed be vitrified homogeneous liquid. However, in recent work published Nature Materials , Chang et al provide compelling evidence show glasses contain liquid-like atoms behave high-temperature stress relaxation. Being activated under cyclic loading, this quenched-in results relaxation process, is discovered variety glasses. Their important deliver strong message dynamic microstructure containing liquid- solid-like atoms. Most importantly, outcome research provides insight into nature glass-transition also helps unravel structure-property relations.