Finite shear elasticity has been identified in the liquid state. The study is expanded to a van der Waal's molecular glass-former, o-terphenyl, and to an ordinary polymer melt, polybutylacrylate, as a function of their molecular weight. These fluids exhibit shear elasticity at the sub-millimetre scale and far above any phase transition. This macroscopic property challenges the conventional terminal relaxation modes (-process or terminal viscoelastic times (reptation)) in terms of individual molecular process.
IntroductionTo define three states of matter, such as solid, liquid or glass and the transitions between them, the shear and bulk moduli are certainly the most useful and relevant characteristic features [1]. The shear modulus presents a substantial advantage over bulk modulus because specific instrumentation has been elaborated to routinely measure the dynamic properties of viscoelastic materials (materials displaying dynamic behaviours intermediate between liquid and solid). These apparatuses are dynamic mechanical analysers, rheometers, shear resonators, surface force apparatus, among others. Based on the same principle, these devices measure the stress or motion transmitted by simple contact between the sample and the surface submitted to small mechanical oscillatory solicitations. This mechanical technique is currently the only one able to probe long time scales.The boundary conditions between the surface and the sample play a major role in this measurement since the efficiency of transmission of the motion and, thus, the quality of the measurement are completely dependent on the interaction between the surface and the material. To date, progress in instrumentation sensitivity and techniques has allowed the measurement of shear modulus with a high precision and over six decades of magnitude [2]. These improvements have considerably widened the frequency window and the modulus range, enabling the detection of subtle properties that could not been considered before. Recent developments have shown that it is also