Communication: Slow relaxation, spatial mobility gradients, and vitrification in confined films
Communication: Slow relaxation, spatial mobility gradients, and vitrification in confined films
Two decades of experimental research indicate that spatial confinement of glass-forming molecular and polymeric liquids results in major changes of their slow dynamics beginning at large confinement distances. A fundamental understanding remains elusive given the generic complexity of activated relaxation in supercooled liquids and the major complications of geometric confinement, …