Theory of the viscosity of supercooled liquids and the glass transition: fragile liquids.

A statistical mechanical theory is presented for viscosity of relatively low molecular weight organic liquids which are supercooled down to the glass transition temperature. In this theory a relation resembling the Stokes-Einstein relation between the viscosity and self-diffusion coefficient of supercooled liquids and an expression for the self-diffusion coefficient are augmented by a suitably constructed semiempirical generic van der Waals equation of state that makes it possible to calculate the free volume. The theory accounts in excellent accuracy for viscosities and self-diffusion coefficients of fragile liquids over the entire range of temperature experimentally investigated. According to the theory, vitrification occurs when the free volume available for translational molecular motion falls below a critical value.