Our work on "Connecting glass-forming ability of binary mixtures of soft particles to equilibrium melting temperatures" was published in Nature Communications.

Work by Yunhuan Nie, Jun Liu, Jialing Guo and Ning Xu was published in Nature Communications, June 2020. 

Abstract

The glass-forming ability is an important material property for manufacturing glasses and understanding the long-standing glass transition problem. Because of the nonequilibrium nature, it is difficult to develop the theory for it. Here we report that the glass-forming ability of binary mixtures of soft particles is related to the equilibrium melting temperatures. Due to the distinction in particle size or stiffness, the two components in a mixture effectively feel different melting temperatures, leading to a melting temperature gap. By varying the particle size, stiffness, and composition over a wide range of pressures, we establish a comprehensive picture for the glass-forming ability, based on our finding of the direct link between the glassforming ability and the melting temperature gap. Our study reveals and explains the pressure and interaction dependence of the glass-forming ability of model glass-formers, and suggests strategies to optimize the glass-forming ability via the manipulation of particle interactions.

Link:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16986-z