Glass formation and crystallization of a simple monatomic liquid

Abstract

A simple monatomic system in two dimensions with a double-well interaction potential is investigated in a wide range of temperatures by molecular-dynamics simulation. The system is melted and equilibrated well above the melting temperature, and then it is quenched to a temperature 88% below the melting temperature at several cooling rates to produce an amorphous state. Various thermodynamic quantities are measured as functions of temperature while the system is heated at a constant rate. The glass transition is observed with a sudden increase in the energy and the glass transition temperature is shown to be an increasing function of the cooling rate in the preparation process of the amorphous state. In a relatively high-temperature region, the system gradually transforms into crystals, and the time-temperature-transformation curve shows a typical nose shape. It is found that the transformation time to a crystalline state is the shortest at a temperature 14-15 % below the melting temperature and that at sufficiently low temperatures the system does not transform into a crystalline state within an observation time in our simulation. This indicates that a long-lived glassy state is realized.