Kinetic Fragility Directly Correlates with the Many-body Static Amorphous Order in Glass-Forming Liquids

Abstract

The term "fragility" describes the rate at which viscosity grows when a supercooled liquid approaches its putative glass transition temperature. The field of glassy materials is actively searching for a structural origin that governs this dynamical slowing down in the supercooled liquid, which occurs without any discernible change in structure. Our work shows clear evidence that growing many-body static amorphous order is intimately correlated with the kinetic fragility of glass-forming liquids. It confirms that the system's dynamical response to temperature is concealed in its micro-structures. This finding may pave the way for a deeper understanding of the different temperature dependence of the relaxation time or viscosity in a wide variety of glass-forming liquids.