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Updated: May 18, 2026

Cooling Rate Dependent Ellipsometry Measurements to Determine the Dynamics of Thin Glassy Films
Published on: January 26, 2016
Simple solvable energy-landscape model that shows a thermodynamic phase transition and a glass transition
1Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Apartado Postal 20-364, 01000 México, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
Abstract:
When a liquid melt is cooled, a glass or phase transition can be obtained depending on the cooling rate. Yet, this behavior has not been clearly captured in energy-landscape models. Here, a model is provided in which two key ingredients are considered in the landscape, metastable states and their multiplicity. Metastable states are considered as in two level system models. However, their multiplicity and topology allows a phase transition in the thermodynamic limit for slow cooling, while a transition to the glass is obtained for fast cooling. By solving the corresponding master equation, the minimal speed of cooling required to produce the glass is obtained as a function of the distribution of metastable states.
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