Abstract Scope |
The conventional approach to elucidate the structure of glass and liquid is to start with a local cluster of several atoms and build up the system by adding more atoms. This approach, however, cannot explain why good medium-range order (MRO) is observed even in complex glasses. We propose to add a top-down approach, in which we start with a high-density gas state and introduce interatomic potential in reciprocal space. We use the pseudopotential without strong repulsion because no pair of atoms come that close to each other for repulsion to contribute to the total energy. The pseudopotential induces density waves and drives the system to the structurally coherent ideal glass state. But the two approaches, local bottom-up and global top-down, are incompatible, and compromise results in the MRO. This balanced approach explains various properties of liquid and glass. This work is supported by the US Department of Energy. |