Correlation between Fragility and the Arrhenius Crossover Phenomenon in Metallic, Molecular, and Network Liquids

Abstract

We report the observation of a distinct correlation between the kinetic fragility index $m$ and the reduced Arrhenius crossover temperature $θ_A = T_A/T_g$ in various glass-forming liquids, identifying three distinguishable groups. In particular, for 11 glass-forming metallic liquids, we universally observe a crossover in the mean diffusion coefficient from high-temperature Arrhenius to low-temperature super-Arrhenius behavior at approximately $θ_A \approx 2$ which is in the stable liquid phases. In contrast, for fragile molecular liquids, this crossover occurs at much lower $θ_A \approx 1.4$ and usually in their supercooled states. The $θ_A$ values for strong network liquids spans a wide range higher than 2. Intriguingly, the high-temperature activation barrier $E_\infty$ is universally found to be $\sim 11\ k_B T_g$ and uncorrelated with the fragility or the reduced crossover temperature $θ_A$ for metallic and molecular liquids. These observations provide a way to estimate the low-temperature glassy characteristics ($T_g$ and $m$) from the high-temperature liquid quantities ($E_\infty$ and $θ_A$).

6 pages, 4 figures