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Organic glasses with exceptional thermodynamic and kinetic stability.

Swallen SF, Kearns KL, Mapes MK, Kim YS, McMahon RJ, Ediger MD, Wu T, Yu L, Satija S

Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

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 affect technologies such as amorphous pharmaceuticals.

Published 19 January 2007 in Science, 315(5810): 353-6.
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