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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Cooling Rate Dependent Ellipsometry Measurements to Determine the Dynamics of Thin Glassy Films
Published on: January 26, 2016
From coupled elementary units to the complexity of the glass transition
Christian Rehwald1, Oliver Rubner, Andreas Heuer
1Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Center of Nonlinear Science CeNoS, Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, Germany.
Abstract:
Supercooled liquids display fascinating properties upon cooling such as the emergence of dynamic length scales. Different models strongly vary with respect to the choice of the elementary subsystems as well as their mutual coupling. Here we show via computer simulations of a glass former that both ingredients can be identified via analysis of finite-size effects within the continuous-time random walk framework. The subsystems already contain complete information about thermodynamics and diffusivity, whereas the coupling determines structural relaxation and the emergence of dynamic length scales.
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