This volume contains the Proceedings of the International Workshop on “Non-Equilibrium Phenomena in Supercooled Fluids, Glasses and Amorphous Materials”, held in Pisa in the early fall of 1995 as a joint initiative of the University of Pisa and of the Scuola Normale Superiore. The goal was to bring together liquid state physicists, chemists and engineers, to review current developments and comparatively discuss experimental facts and theoretical predictions in this vast scientific area. The core of the Workshop was a set of general lectures followed by more specific presentations on current issues in the main areas of the field. This structure has been maintained in this volume, in which a set of five overviews is followed by topically grouped contributions in the five areas of ionic glasses and glassy materials, the glass transition, viscous flow and microscopic relaxation, complex fluids, and polymers. The volume also preserves a record of the many short contributions given to the Workshop through posters, which are grouped in it under the subjects of inorganic glasses, organic glasses and complex fluids, polymers, and theoretical aspects.

Describes and interrelates the following processes: cooperative alpha processes in a cold liquid, structural relaxation in the glass near Tg, the Johari-Goldstein beta process, the Williams-Götze process in a warm liquid, fast nonactivated cage rattling and boson peak, and ultraslow Fischer modes.

One of the major experimental difficulties in studying materials at extreme temperatures is unwanted contamination of the sample through contact with the container. This can be avoided by suspending the sample through levitation. This technique also makes metastable states of matter accessible, opening up new avenues of scientific enquiry, as well as possible new materials for technological applications. This book describes several methods of levitation, the most important being aerodynamic, electromagnetic and electrostatic. It summarizes the state-of-the-art of the measurement of structural, dynamic and physical properties with levitation techniques, the considerable progress made in this field in the past two decades, and prospects for the future. It also explores the concepts behind the experiments and associated theoretical ideas. Aimed at researchers in physics, physical chemistry and materials science, the book is also of interest to professionals working in high-temperature materials processing and the aerospace industry.

The aim of this NATO ASI has been to present an up-to-date overview of current areas of interest in amorphous materials. In order to limit the material to a manageable amount, the meeting was concerned exclusively with insulating and semiconducting materials. The lectures and seminars fill the gap between graduate courses and research seminars. The lecturers and seminar speakers were chosen as experts in their respective areas and the lectures and seminars that were given are presented in this volume. During the first week of the meeting. an emphasis was placed on introductory lectures, mainly associated with questions relating to the glass-formation and the structure of glasses. The second week focused more on research seminars. Each day of the meeting. about four posters were presented during the coffee breaks, and these formed an important focus for discussions. The posters are not reproduced in this volume as the editors wanted to have only larger contributions to make this volume more coherent. This volume is organized into four sections, starting with general considerations of the glass forming ability and techniques for the preparation of different kinds of glasses.

Both an introductory course to broadband dielectric spectroscopy and a monograph describing recent dielectric contributions to current topics, this book is the first to cover the topic and has been hotly awaited by the scientific community.

This book, edited by M. A. Ramos and contributed by several reputed physicists in the field, presents a timely review on low-temperature thermal and vibrational properties of glasses, and of disordered solids in general. In 1971, the seminal work of Zeller and Pohl was published, which triggered this relevant research field in condensed matter physics. Hence, this book also commemorates about 50 years of that highlight with a comprehensive, updated review.In brief, glasses (firstly genuine amorphous solids but later on followed by different disordered crystals) were found to universally exhibit low-temperature properties (specific heat, thermal conductivity, acoustic and dielectric attenuation, etc.) unexpectedly very similar among them — and very different from those of their crystalline counterparts.These universal 'anomalies' of glasses and other disordered solids remain very controversial topics in condensed matter physics. They have been addressed exhaustively in this book, through many updated experimental data, a survey of most relevant models and theories, as well as by computational simulations.

recently discovered advantages of amorphous forms of medicines/pharmaceutical products which focused a significant part of industry-related efforts on the GFA (Glass Forming Ability) and the glass temperature (T) versus pressure g dependences. 1 b ? 0 ? ? o ? P ? Pg P ? Pg 0 ? ? ? ? T (P ) = F (P )D (P ) =T 1 + exp ? g g ? 0 ? ? ? ? c + Pg ? ? ? ? 400 1 b 0 o ? ? ? ? P ? P P ? P g g 0 ? ? ? ? T (P ) = F (P )D (P ) =T 1 + exp ? g g 0 ? ? ? ? c ? + P max g ? ? ? ? T ~7 GPa g max P ~ 304 K Liquid g 300 1 HS glass 0 200 -1 mSG ?=0. 044 Liquid -2 100 -3 glass ?=0. 12 -1. 2 -0. 9 -0. 6 -0. 3 0. 0 log T 10 scaled -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 P (GPa) g 19 Figure 1. T he pressure evolution of the glass temperature in gl Th ye s cerol ol . id curve shows the parameterization of experimental data via the novel, modifie d Glat Sizm elon type equation, given in the Figure.

This volume focuses on the area of the physics of complex systems and provides both an overview of the field and more detailed examination of those topics within the field that are currently of greatest interest to researchers. The properties of complex systems play an important role in a variety of different and overlapping areas in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and technology. The research field of complex systems is very broad, but this volume attempts to be comprehensive. This book is a useful reference work for researchers in this area, whether graduate students or advanced academics. Up-to-date reviews of cutting-edge topics are provided, compiled by leading authorities and designed to both broaden the reader's insight and encourage the exploration of new problems in related fields. An overview of the present status of the physics of complex systems is provided on the following general topics: (1) scaling behaviours; (2) supramolecular systems; (3) aggregation, aggregation kinetics and disorderly growth mechanisms; (4) granularly matter; (5) polymers, associating polymers, polyelectrolytes and gels; (6) amphiphiles, emulsions, colloids, membranes and interface phenomena; (7) molecular motors; (8) phase separation and out of equilibrium dynamics; (9) turbulence, chaos and chaotic dynamics; (10) glass transition, supercooled fluids and (11) geometrically constrained dynamics.