Further evidence against the alleged failure of the classical nucleation theory below the glass transition range

Abstract

AbstractWe collected a plethora of new data to test the hypothesis that the failure of the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) below the glass transition range is just an experimental artifact. Since reaching the steady‐state nucleation regime takes a significant time for treatments below the glass transition temperature, data collected in this temperature range tend not to have reached a steady state. Because of this potential problem, we examined the CNT using new experimental data for three stoichiometric silicate glasses: Li2Si2O5, BaSi2O5, and Na4CaSi3O9. We also measured the equilibrium viscosity for the studied glass batches and used it as a proxy for the effective diffusion coefficient. The analysis was conducted by applying a steady‐state criterion and evaluating the error propagation throughout all calculations. Using this rigorous procedure, we have not observed the alleged CNT failure. Our comprehensive results support recent studies questioning this possible CNT failure helping solve a longstanding problem in glass science.