화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.110, No.20, 9772-9773, 2006
Nanoconfinement and the glass transition: A cluster hypothesis
It is suggested that the depression of the glass temperature in nanoconfined liquids and polymers may be explained by an effect of the confinement alone: specifically, confinement by hard walls creates an excluded volume effect that decreases the fraction of molecules organized in clusters. If we think of this fraction as a rough surrogate determining the fictive or structural temperature, then the confined liquid will have a higher fictive temperature than the bulk liquid at the same actual temperature. A computational method already used to study clusters may test the hypothesis.