title: Age and structure of a model vapour-deposited glass.
abstract: Glass films prepared by a process of physical vapour deposition have been shown to have thermodynamic and kinetic stability comparable to those of ordinary glasses aged for thousands of years. A central question in the study of vapour-deposited glasses, particularly in light of new knowledge regarding anisotropy in these materials, is whether the ultra-stable glassy films formed by vapour deposition are ever equivalent to those obtained by liquid cooling. Here we present a computational study of vapour deposition for a two-dimensional glass forming liquid using a methodology, which closely mimics experiment. We find that for the model considered here, structures that arise in vapour-deposited materials are statistically identical to those observed in ordinary glasses, provided the two are compared at the same inherent structure energy. We also find that newly deposited hot molecules produce cascades of hot particles that propagate far into the film, possibly influencing the relaxation of the material.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lyubimov
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Ediger
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.|Institute for Molecular Engineering, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 Cass Ave, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA.
authors.forename: Juan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: de Pablo