The Origin of the Fragile-to-Strong Crossover in Liquid Silica as Expressed by its Potential Energy Landscape

The origin of the fragile-to-strong crossover in liquid silica is characterized in terms of properties of the potential energy landscape (PEL). Using the standard BKS model of silica we observe a low-energy cutoff of the PEL. It is shown that this feature of the PEL is responsible for the occurrence of the fragile-to-strong crossover and may also explain the avoidance of the Kauzmann paradox. The number of defects, i.e. deviations from the ideal tetrahedral structure, vanishes for configurations with energies close to this cutoff. This suggests a structural reason for this cutoff.