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Microscopic Aspects of Stretched Exponential Relaxation (SER) in Homogeneous Molecular and Network Glasses and Polymers

Because the theory of SER is still a work in progress, the phenomenon itself can be said to be the oldest unsolved problem in science, as it started with Kohlrausch in 1847. Many electrical and optical phenomena exhibit SER with probe relaxation I(t) ~ exp[-(t/τ)β], with 0 < β < 1. Here τ is a material-sensitive parameter, useful for discussing chemical trends. The "shape" parameter β is dimensionless and plays the role of a non-equilibrium scaling exponent; its value, especially in glasses, is both practically useful and theoretically significant. The mathematical complexity of SER is such that rigorous derivations of this peculiar function were not achieved until the 1970's. The focus of much of the 1970's pioneering work was spatial relaxation of electronic charge, but SER is a universal phenomenon, and today atomic and molecular relaxation of glasses and deeply supercooled liquids provide the most reliable data. As the data base grew, the need for a quantitative theory increased; this need was finally met by the diffusion-to-traps topological model, which yields a remarkably simple expression for the shape parameter β, given by d*/(d* + 2). At first sight this expression appears to be identical to d/(d + 2), where d is the actual spatial dimensionality, as originally derived. The original model, however, failed to explain much of the data base. Here the theme of earlier reviews, based on the observation that in the presence of short-range forces only d* = d = 3 is the actual spatial dimensionality, while for mixed short- and long-range forces, d* = fd = d/2, is applied to four new spectacular examples, where it turns out that SER is useful not only for purposes of quality control, but also for defining what is meant by a glass in novel contexts. (Please see full abstract in main text)