One of the central challenges to employing simulation to resolve the underlying physics of glass formation has been an inability to probe sufficiently long times in sufficiently diverse chemistries to validate or falsify competing theories of this phenomenon. Recently, we have developed an automated algorithm for simulation of glass-forming liquids that improves the simulation efficiency of these liquids 100-fold, enabling facile access to relaxation times of 100 ns or more in diverse chemistries and models. After reviewing this approach, here we describe simulations employing this algorithm to probe relaxation behavior in bulk and thin film geometries with a range of chemistries. We show that data from these simulations narrow the set of plausible theoretical descriptions of the glass transition and identify key phenomenological and mechanistic elements that must be contained in any ultimate theory for this phenomenon.

Insights into the underlying physics of glass formation from long-time and high-throughput equilibrium simulations of glass-formers in thin films and the bulk

2019 Spring National Meeting

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