Revealing hidden medium-range order in silicate glass formers using many-body correlation functions

The medium-range order in amorphous systems is believed to be related to quantities like dynamic heterogeneity, glass-formation ability, or the elastic properties of the glass. So far, however, there has been no simple way to characterize this order. Here, the authors use a novel many-body correlation function that allows to characterize this order. Applying this approach to sodium silicate glasses reveals that in these systems the temperature and compositional dependence of the medium-range order is surprisingly complex.