Fifth-order susceptibility unveils growth of thermodynamic amorphous order in glass-formers.

Glasses are often thought of as frozen liquids without long-range order. Albert et al. used fifth-order dielectric susceptibility measurements to show that the real reason behind the stiffness of glass is more complicated. Measuring the response of two traditional glass formers to very high electric fields is challenging, but reveals the growth of compact domains across the glass transition. The emerging amorphous order is only weakly dependent on the specific molecular properties, suggesting a more universal governing behavior for making glasses. Science , this issue p. [1308][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaf3182