Nonequilibrium thermodynamics: Structural relaxation, fictive temperature, and Tool-Narayanaswamy phenomenology in glasses

Abstract

Starting from the second law of thermodynamics applied to an isolated system consisting of the system surrounded by an extremely large medium, we formulate a general nonequilibrium thermodynamic description of the system when it is out of thermal and mechanical equilibrium with the medium. Our approach allows us to identify the correct form of the Gibbs free energy and enthalpy. We also obtain an extension of the classical nonequilibrium thermodynamics due to de Donder in which one normally assumes thermal and mechanical equilibrium with the medium; see text. We find that the temperature and pressure differences between the system and the medium act as thermodynamic forces, which are normally neglected in the classical nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The Prigogine-Defay ratio is found to be greater than 1 merely due to the lack of equilibrium with the medium, even though we do not consider any internal order parameters. This shows that these forces should play an important role in relaxation processes. We then apply our approach to study the general trend during structural relaxation in glasses and establish the phenomenology behind the concept of the fictive temperature and of the empirical Tool-Narayanaswamy equation on firmer theoretical foundation.