Creating bulk ultrastable glasses by random particle bonding.

Abstract

A recent breakthrough in glass science has been the synthesis of ultrastable glasses via physical vapor deposition techniques. These samples display enhanced thermodynamic, kinetic and mechanical stability, with important implications for fundamental science and technological applications. However, the vapor deposition technique is limited to atomic, polymer and organic glass-formers and is only able to produce thin film samples. Here, we propose a novel approach to generate ultrastable glassy configurations in the bulk, via random particle bonding, and using computer simulations we show that this method does indeed allow for the production of ultrastable glasses. Our technique is in principle applicable to any molecular or soft matter system, such as colloidal particles with tunable bonding interactions, thus opening the way to the design of a large class of ultrastable glasses.