A unified molecular level mechanism for the universal alpha- and Johari-Goldstein beta-relaxations in glassformers

Abstract

We presented that the relaxation of n coupling molecules in a molecular string exhibits n individual relaxation modes (RMs), each mode being characterized by a definite relaxation time and amplitude according to the string model. The n RMs behaving a single relaxation at high temperature, evolves to two relaxation species, at low temperature, with different temperature dependences for the respective relaxation times and amplitudes. Since the characteristics of the two relaxation species are in agreement with those exhibited by the universal alpha- and Johari-Goldstein (JG) beta-relaxations in glass dynamics, we provided a unified molecular level mechanism for these two processes.