Dynamics of glassy and supercooled liquid benzophenone near and below glass transition

Abstract

Kinetics of the glass transition in benzophenone and the temperature where the nucleation process appears to be in supercooled liquid were studied by differential scanning calorimetry. Glass transition kinetics was analysed by the Kissinger method and the effective activation energy was determined. The temperature where the process of nucleation starts was found to be 253 K. It is remarkable that this temperature corresponds to the critical temperature T c=1.2 T g of a mode coupling theory, which separates the ‘non-ergodic’ glassy regime at T< T c from the ‘ergodic’ liquid regime at T> T c. It means that the loss of ergodicity is due to the process of nucleation and growth of a new phase within an old one.