Surface diffusion is important for a broad range of chemical and physical processes that take place at the surfaces of amorphous solids, including surface crystallization. In this work, the temporal evolution of nanoholes is monitored with atomic force microscopy to quantify the surface dynamics of amorphous selenium. In molecular glasses, the surface diffusion coefficient has been shown to scale with the surface crystal growth rate (us) according to the power relation us ≈ Ds 0.87. In this study, we observe that the same power law applies to surface crystallization of amorphous selenium, a representative inorganic polymer glass. Our study shows that the surface diffusion coefficient can be used to quantitatively predict surface crystallization rates in a chemically diverse range of materials.

Department of Chemistry University of Wisconsin Madison Madison Wisconsin 53706 USA

Department of Physical Chemistry University of Pardubice Studentská 573 53210 Pardubice Czech Republic

School of Pharmacy University of Wisconsin Madison Madison Wisconsin 53705 USA

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Beyond the Surface: Interconnection of Viscosity, Crystal Growth, and Diffusion in Ge25Se75 Glass-Former