The Structure of Amorphous Materials

Abstract

Amorphous materials are condensed phases which do not possess the long-range translational (or orientational) order --- or periodicity --- characteristic of a crystal. The terms amorphous and non-crystalline are synonymous under this definition. The term glassy has the same structural meaning, but in addition it also usually implies that the material exhibits a `glass transition' (evidenced by a discontinuous change in, for example, the heat capacity from a liquid-like to crystal-like value at the transition on cooling a melt). Although the presence of dynamic disorder in the case of liquids complicates matters, the average atomic structure of liquids can be described in similar ways to that of amorphous solids.