Dielectric relaxation of Sorbitol revisited

Abstract

We have performed broadband dielectric spectroscopy to study the merging of the α- and β-relaxations in Sorbitol. To investigate this merging in detail the data were analyzed both directly in the frequency domain and after transforming the data to the time domain. At the liquid-glass transition temperature, T_g , the standard analysis give a clear kink in the temperature dependence of the relaxation time of the β-relaxation. However, using a more sophisticated analysis we show that the data can be equally well described by extrapolating the low temperature Arrhenius behaviour of the β-relaxation to the merging region of the α- and β-relaxations. The Sorbitol data is thus compatible with a scenario with no anomalous temperature behaviour in the merging region.

Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Swedish Natural Science Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

†More elaborate data analysis with free curve-fit parameters reproduce the extrapolated values, which justify our extrapolation.