Growing length scales in a supercooled liquid close to an interface

Abstract

We present the results of molecular dynamics computer simulations of a simple glass former close to an interface between the liquid and the frozen amorphous phase of the same material. By investigating F_s(q,z,t), the incoherent intermediate scattering function for particles that have a distance z from the wall, we show that the relaxation dynamics of the particles close to the wall is much slower than the one for particles far away from the wall. For small z the typical relaxation time for F_s(q,z,t) increases like exp(Delta/(z-z_p)), where Delta and z_p are constants. We use the location of the crossover from this law to the bulk behavior to define a first length scale tilde{z}. A different length scale is defined by considering the Ansatz F_s(q,z,t) = F_s^{bulk}(q,t) +a(t) exp[-(z/xi(t))^{beta(t)}], where a(t), xi(t), and beta(t) are fit parameters. We show that this Ansatz gives a very good description of the data for all times and all values of z. The length xi(t) increases for short and intermediate times and decreases again on the time scale of the alpha-relaxation of the system. The maximum value of xi(t) can thus be defined as a new length scale xi_max. We find that tilde{z} as well as xi_max increase with decreasing temperature. The temperature dependence of this increase is compatible with a divergence of the length scale at the Kauzmann temperature of the bulk system.