Low-Frequency Dynamics and Its Correlation of Nanoscale Structures in Amorphous Solids

Unlike the crystalline solids, the atomic arrangements in amorphous solids lack long-range translational and orientational order. Despite intense research activity on their structures, the details of how the atoms are packed in amorphous solids remain mysterious at present. Here, we propose a structure feature like polymers and estimate the nanoscale of short-range order (SRO) and medium-range order (MRO) in this description according to the boson peak in amorphous solids. The result supports the concepts that (a) the low-frequency local vibrations are defined by the characteristic length of nanoscale clusters and (b) a decisive scale correlation of solvent atoms, SRO and MRO is about 1:3:7 in amorphous solids.