Role of Local Structure in the Enhanced Dynamics of Deformed Glasses

ET Yang and RA Riggleman, PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 128, 097801 (2022).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.097801

External stress can accelerate molecular mobility of amorphous solids by several orders of magnitude. The changes in mobility are commonly interpreted through the Eyring model, which invokes an empirical activation volume. Here, we analyze constant-stress molecular dynamics simulations and propose a structure-dependent Eyring model, connecting activation volume to a machine-learned field, softness. We show that stress has a heterogeneous effect on the mobility that depends on local structure through softness. The barrier impeding relaxation reduces more for well-packed particles, which explains the narrower distribution of relaxation time observed under stress.

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