Experimental determination of the temperature-dependent Van Hove function in a Zr80Pt20 liquid

R. Ashcraft, Z. Wang, D. L. Abernathy, D. G. Quirinale, T. Egami, K. F. Kelton

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Abstract

Even though the viscosity is one of the most fundamental properties of liquids, the connection with the atomic structure of the liquid has proven elusive. By combining inelastic neutron scattering with the electrostatic levitation technique, the time-dependent pair-distribution function (i.e., the Van Hove function) has been determined for liquid Zr80Pt20. We show that the decay time of the first peak of the Van Hove function is directly related to the Maxwell relaxation time of the liquid, which is proportional to the shear viscosity. This result demonstrates that the local dynamics for increasing or decreasing the coordination number of local clusters by one determines the viscosity at high temperature, supporting earlier predictions from molecular dynamics simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Article number074506
JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
Volume152
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 21 2020

Funding

We thank A. J. Vogt, M. L. Johnson, C. E. Pueblo, R. Dai, H. Wang, and W. Dmowski for their help in the neutron scattering experiments and for useful discussion. The work at Washington University in St. Louis was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-15-06553 and the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) under Grant No. NNX16AB52G. T. Egami and Z. Wang were supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering Division. A portion of this research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The work done at Iowa State was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-1308099.

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