Probing equilibrium glass flow up to exapoise viscosities

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423435112
• Publication Date: 2015-02-10T04:13:27Z
• Authors: Eva Arianna Aurel...; Cristian Rodrígue...; Giulio Cerullo; Carino Ferrante; Javier Rodríguez-...; Tullio Scopigno
• Keywords: Isothermal process

Glasses are out-of-equilibrium systems aging under the crystallization threat. During ordinary glass formation, atomic diffusion slows down, rendering its experimental investigation impractically long, to extent that a timescale divergence is taken for granted by many. We circumvent these limitations here, taking advantage of wide family glasses rapidly obtained physical vapor deposition directly into solid state, endowed with different "ages" rivaling those reached standard cooling and waiting millennia. Isothermally probing mechanical response each glasses, we infer correspondence viscosity along equilibrium line, up exapoise values. find dependence elastic modulus on age, which, traced back temperature steepness index viscosity, tears down one cornerstones several transition theories: dynamical divergence. Critically, our results suggest conventional wisdom picture ceasing flow at finite could be wrong.