Onset of slow dynamics in difluorotetrachloroethane glassy crystal -: art. no. 084501

Complementary neutron spin-echo and x-ray experiments and molecular-dynamics simulations have been performed on difluorotetrachloroethane (CFCl2-CFCl2) glassy crystal. Static, single-molecule reorientational dynamics and collective dynamics properties are investigated. Our results confirm the strong analogy between molecular liquids and plastic crystals. The orientational disorder is characterized at different temperatures and a change in the nature of rotational dynamics is observed. A careful check of the rotational diffusion model is performed using self-angular correlation functions C-l with high l values and compared to results obtained on molecular liquids composed of A-B dumbbells. Below the crossover temperature at which slow dynamics emerge, we show that some scaling predictions of the mode coupling theory hold and that alpha-relaxation times and nonergodicity parameters are controlled by the nontrivial static correlations. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.