Stable-glass formation by moderately strong organic glassformers

Determine whether any moderately strong organic glassformer can form a highly stable glass through physical vapor deposition.

Background

The study demonstrates stable-glass formation for systems with intermediate and very high fragility, while prior work cited by the authors reported failures for glycerol and water, which are relatively strong glassformers. The authors suggest that hydrogen-bonding networks may contribute to those failures, possibly by preventing sufficiently high surface mobility during deposition.

Against this background, the paper identifies an unresolved question concerning the lower-fragility boundary of stable-glass formation: whether a moderately strong organic glassformer can nevertheless produce a highly stable glass by vapor deposition.

References

In any case, it remains an open question as to whether any moderately strong organic glassformer can form a highly stable glass via vapor-deposition.

— Highly Stable Glasses of cis-Decalin and cis/trans-Decalin Mixtures  (2608.23443 - Whitaker et al., 24 Aug 2026) in Discussion, subsection “The generality of stable glass formation”