Emergent Fractal Energy Landscape as the Origin of Stress-Accelerated Dynamics in Amorphous Solids
Chaoyi Liu, Yue Fan
Abstract
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.
Topics & Concepts
Energy landscapeMetastabilityFractalAmorphous solidStatistical physicsDynamics (music)Energy (signal processing)Materials scienceMultiplicity (mathematics)PhysicsShear (geology)Potential energySimple (philosophy)Chemical physicsMolecular dynamicsClassical mechanicsBridging (networking)Internal energyPercolation (cognitive psychology)MechanicsFractal dimensionMaterial Dynamics and PropertiesMetallic Glasses and Amorphous AlloysTheoretical and Computational Physics