Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 29, 2026

Measuring the Densities of Aqueous Glasses at Cryogenic Temperatures
Published on: June 28, 2017
On the potential energy landscape of supercooled liquids and glasses
1Laboratoire Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés, Grenoble INP, UJF, CNRS, Domaine Universitaire BP 46, F38402 Saint Martin d'Hères, France. david.rodney@grenoble-inp.fr
Abstract:
The activation-relaxation technique (ART), a saddle-point search method, is applied to determine the potential energy landscape around supercooled and glassy configurations of a three-dimensional binary Lennard-Jones system. We show a strong relation between the distribution of activation energies around a given glassy configuration and its history, in particular, the cooling rate used to produce the glass and whether or not the glass was plastically deformed prior to sampling. We also compare the thermally activated transitions found by ART around a supercooled configuration with the succession of transitions undergone by the same supercooled liquid during a time trajectory simulated by molecular dynamics. We find that ART is biased towards more heterogeneous transitions with higher activation energies and more broken bonds than the MD simulation.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing
Thermodynamic Potentials
Phase Diagrams
Potential-Energy Criterion for Equilibrium
Energy Diagrams - II
The point in the energy diagram at which the system’s potential energy is the lowest is known as the local minima. The system tends to stay in this position indefinitely unless acted upon by a net force. The slope of the potential energy diagram at the local minima is zero, indicating that zero net force is acting on the system. The slope...
Phase Transitions: Vaporization and Condensation

