Mathematical approach provides a new step in resolving the mystery of glass

Illustration of a Coulomb glass - a type of glass formed by electrons in disordered material: Electrons (red) in a random landscape, interacting with each other (yellow-orange lines). New research led by researchers at Penn State and the Argonne National Laboratory makes an important step towards understanding the mysterious properties of glasses. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. An interdisciplinary team of mathematicians and physicists has developed a new quantitative approach to understanding the mysterious properties of the materials called glasses. The study is described in a paper in the Nature Publishing Group journal Scientific Reports on Jan. The research, led by Leonid Berlyand, professor of mathematics at Penn State and Valerii Vinokur, Argonne Distinguished Fellow in the Materials Science Division of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, enables a breakthrough in the description of the subclass of glasses, known as a "Coulomb glass," and has wide-ranging application to understanding a variety of glassy systems in nature. "The approach we developed provides a launching point for further studies of glasses, whose properties have been too complex for mathematical treatment until now," said Berlyand.