Should we all buy stripy glasses?

Condensed Matter lunchtime seminar

Should we all buy stripy glasses?

  • Event time: 1:00pm
  • Event date: 25th June 2001
  • Speaker: Mike Cates (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

This journal club talk will describe recent work of Wolynes and others [1-3] which predicts the formation of a glassy state in systems whose ordered phase consists of stripes. An example of such a phase is a lamellar liquid crystal -- and indeed the model used by Wolynes et al is virtually identical to one normally used to describe the transition to lamellae. But this is very odd because, experimentally, the lamellar phase usually forms quite easily without ever getting stuck in glassy state. So, is the prediction of the stripy glass just an artefact of the approximations, or does it have real physics in it?

References:
[1] Stripe Glasses -- Self-Generated Randomness in a Uniformly Frustrated System, J Schmalian and PG Wolynes. Phys Rev Lett 85, 836 (2000)
[2] Self generated randomness, defect wandering and viscous flow in stripe glasses, H Westfahl, J Schmalian and PG Wolynes, cond-mat/0102285
[3] Theory of Microemulsion Glasses, S Wu, H Westfahl, J Schmalian and PG Wolynes, cond-mat/0105308

About Condensed Matter lunchtime seminars

This is a weekly series of informal talks given primarily by members of the institute of condensed matter and complex systems, but is also open to members of other groups and external visitors. The aim of the series is to promote discussion and learning of various topics at a level suitable to the broad background of the group. Everyone is welcome to attend..

Find out more about Condensed Matter lunchtime seminars.