UC Davis

Direct quantitative measurements of nanoscale dynamical processes associated with structural relaxation and crystallization near the glass transition are a major experimental challenge. These type of processes have been primarily treated as macroscopic phenomena within the framework of phenomenological models and bulk experiments. Here, we report x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy measurements of dynamics at the crystal-melt interface during the radiation induced formation of Se nano-crystallites in pure Se and in binary AsSe₄ glass-forming liquids near their glass transition temperature. We observe a heterogeneous dynamical behaviour where the intensity correlation functions g₂(q, t) exhibits either a compressed or a stretched exponential decay, depending on the size of the Se nano-crystallites. The corresponding relaxation timescale for the AsSe₄ liquid increases as the temperature is raised, which can be attributed to changes in the chemical composition of the melt at the crystal-melt interface with the growth of the Se nano-crystallites.