Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2021 Nov 19;127(21):215502. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.215502.
The ageing dynamics in a multiplicity of metastable glasses are investigated at various thermomechanical conditions. By using data analytics to deconvolute the integral effects of environmental factors (e.g., energy level, temperature, stress), and by directly scrutinizing the minimum energy pathways for local excitations, we demonstrate external shear would make the system's energy landscape surprisingly fractal and create an emergent low-barrier mode with highly tortuous pathways, leading to an accelerated relaxation. This finding marks a departure from the classic picture of shear-induced simple bias of energy landscape. The insights and implications of this study are also discussed.
研究了多种亚稳玻璃在各种热机械条件下的老化动态。通过使用数据分析来解卷积环境因素（例如能级、温度、应力）的积分效应，并直接检查局部激发的最小能量途径，我们证明外部剪切会使系统的能量景观令人惊讶地分形，并产生具有高度曲折途径的新兴低势垒模式，从而导致弛豫加速。这一发现偏离了剪切诱导的简单能量景观偏置的经典图景。还讨论了这项研究的意义和启示。
