Isotope effects on the dynamics of a supercooled van der Waals liquid

Deuteron magnetic resonance was used to study three differently isotope-labeled species of the fragile glass-forming liquid ortho-terphenyl. The calorimetric glass transition of the isotope deuterated only at the central phenyl ring is significantly lower than that of the perdeuterated one. It is shown that while the ortho-terphenyl molecule is not as rigid as previously often assumed, its overall reorientation geometry is independent of deuteration. The characteristic jump angles are found to increase with temperature, thus resolving an apparent discrepancy previously noted when comparing typical jump sizes from NMR with other data.