Structure of a Supercooled Liquid
Sulekhanisanth, PGT Chemistry , KV NTPC Kayamkulam
The experimental work, which
was performed at the German Electron Synchrotron Facility (DESY) in Hamburg,
involved levitating hot metal droplets and observing them as they cooled by
irradiating them with x-rays from one of the world's strongest x-ray sources.
The research work is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the
results have just been published in 'Nature Communications'.
(The hot droplet is suspended in a vacuum between two electrodes. While the droplet cools down or is heated up, its structure is continuously monitored by exposing it to radiation from the synchrotron source. (Credit: Institute of Materials Physics in Space at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Cologne, Germany.)
Supercooled
liquids demonstrate some interesting phenomena when they are irradiated with an
extremely bright x-ray source. Shuai Wei, a doctoral student in the Metallic
Materials Group headed by Professor Ralf Busch at Saarland University, has been
able to observe such phenomena together with research colleagues from DLR are
IFW. 'We have been able to show for the first time that a liquid that is being
cooled transforms into a liquid of the same concentration but of greater order,
before further cooling initiates crystallisation,' said Shuai Wei, who
graduated with a Bachelor's degree in physics in Shanghai and has completed his
Master's thesis under the supervision of Professor Busch. Busch and his team
are particularly interested in liquid metals that, when cooled, eventually
freeze to form bulk metallic glasses. As structural materials, these amorphous
metals exhibit some very interesting properties.
