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Published Online December 7, 2006
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1135795

Reports

Submitted on October 2, 2006
Accepted on November 27, 2006

Organic Glasses with Exceptional Thermodynamic and Kinetic Stability

Stephen F. Swallen 1, Kenneth L. Kearns 1, Marie K. Mapes 1, Yong Seol Kim 1, Robert McMahon 1, Mark D. Ediger 1*, Tian Wu 2, Lian Yu 2, Sushil Satija 3

1 Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
2 School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53705, USA.
3 NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Mark D. Ediger , E-mail: ediger{at}chem.wisc.edu

Vapor deposition has been used to create glassy materials with extraordinary thermodynamic and kinetic stability and high density. For glasses prepared from indomethacin or 1,3-bis-(1-naphthyl)-5-(2-naphthyl)benzene, stability is optimized when deposition occurs on substrates at a temperature of 50 K below the conventional glass transition temperature. We attribute the substantial improvement in thermodynamic and kinetic properties to enhanced mobility within a few nanometers of the glass surface during deposition. This technique provides an efficient means of producing glassy materials that are low on the energy landscape and could impact technologies such as amorphous pharmaceuticals.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Liquids and Structural Glasses Special Feature: Physical vapor deposition as a route to hidden amorphous states.
K. J. Dawson, K. L. Kearns, L. Yu, W. Steffen, and M. D. Ediger (2009)
PNAS 106, 15165-15170
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Dynamic Order-Disorder in Atomistic Models of Structural Glass Formers.
L. O. Hedges, R. L. Jack, J. P. Garrahan, and D. Chandler (2009)
Science 323, 1309-1313
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)