Fig. 1: Heterogeneous distribution of Peierls-like distortions in amorphous antimony.

a Distribution of distances of the six nearest neighbors at low temperatures. The atomic distances split into groups of three short (r₁ ≈ 3.0 Å) and three longer (r₂ ≈ 3.2 Å to approximately 4.0 Å) bonds. An exemplary illustration of Peierls-like distortions in the amorphous phase is shown in Supplementary Fig. 1. b Temperature dependence of the average distance of the six nearest neighbors. The clear splitting into long and short bonds emerges continuously below a temperature of 600 K. c Distribution of the ratio r₂/r₁ of long to short bonds at low temperatures shows correlated regions with low (light colors) and high (dark colors) amounts of distortion. d The angular-limited bond length ratio again illustrates the continuous increase of Peierls-like distortions in the supercooled liquid and glass. The angular-limited bond length ratio is defined as given in the Methods section. The inset shows the similar and more common angular-limited three body correlation at room temperature, again as defined in the Methods section. e The structural correlation length of distortion increases beyond the nearest neighbor distance at temperatures below 700 K. The correlation function is defined in the Methods section. The correlation length is likely influenced by finite size effects already at 500 K, as the size of the simulation box is only 2.9 nm.