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Updated: May 16, 2026

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Published on: January 26, 2016
Temperature-dependent two-state dynamics of individual cooperatively rearranging regions on a glass surface
S Ashtekar1, J Lyding, M Gruebele
1Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Abstract:
Cooperatively rearranging regions (CRRs) play a central role in the temperature dependence of glass dynamics. We record real-time atomic resolution movies of individual CRRs, while ramping their temperature. Between 295 and 326 K, well below the bulk glass transition temperature T(g), the rate coefficient for two-state hopping of CRRs increases over tenfold, yielding an Arrhenius activation barrier of ≈10k(B)T(g). By time resolving the dynamics of many individual CRRs, we show that highly stretched dynamics of the CRR ensemble results mainly from spatial heterogeneity, less from temporal heterogeneity of individual CRRs.
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