Unraveling the super-complex structure of supercooled liquids

When cooled to their freezing point, most liquids become solids or crystallize. In other words, the molecules arrange themselves in a perfectly ordered fashion, which physicists call a crystal. Supercooled liquids are different; they do not form such crystals even if they are cooled below their freezing point. These liquids are used in many industries, but a thorough understanding of their properties is lacking. Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) researchers now reveal the most realistic description of their properties to date, using—as a first-time—four body correlation functions. The work is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.