Local structure of ortho-terphenyl glass

DOI

Ortho-terphenyl is a paradigmatic example of a molecular glass-former; yet the structure of its glass has never been fully described. We have recently demonstrated that, by using judicious potentials, we can isolate weak intermolecular interactions from a pair distribution function even in the presence of strong intramolecular correlations, and we propose to use this method to probe ortho-terphenyl glass. We will measure total scattering data from the crystalline, glassy (fast- and slow-cooled), and liquid phases of this material, and thence derive a model for the local structure in each phase by reverse Monte Carlo analysis. This will show how both the molecular conformation and the packing vary between phases, helping to explain this material's extreme fragility. The analysis will be supported by complementary molecular dynamics simulations.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.24090593
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/24090593
Provenance
Creator Professor Martin Dove; Dr Anthony Phillips; Mr Edward Beake; Dr Matthew Tucker; Mr Dominic Carter; Dr Viswanathan Mohandoss; Miss Juan Du; Dr Donna Arnold; Dr Helen Duncan; Miss Serena A. Maugeri
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2016
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Photon- and Neutron Geosciences
Temporal Coverage Begin 2013-05-19T08:59:46Z
Temporal Coverage End 2013-05-22T15:20:48Z