Nuclear-magnetic-resonance measurements reveal the origin of the Debye process in monohydroxy alcohols.

Monohydroxy alcohols show a structural relaxation and at longer time scales a Debye-type dielectric peak. From spin-lattice relaxation experiments using different nuclear probes, an intermediate, slower-than-structural dynamics is identified for n-butanol. Based on these findings and on translational diffusion measurements, a model of self-restructuring, transient chains is proposed. The model is demonstrated to explain consistently the so-far puzzling observations made for this class of hydrogen-bonded glass forming liquids.