Formation of Ultrastable Glasses via Precipitation: A Modeling Study.

The precipitation of a glass forming solute from solution is modeled using a lattice model previously introduced to study dissolution kinetics of amorphous materials. The model includes the enhancement of kinetics at the surface of a glass in contact with a plasticizing solvent. We demonstrate that precipitation can produce a glass substantially more stable than that produced by very long time annealing of the bulk glass former. The energy of these ultrastable amorphous precipitates is found to be dominated by residual solvent rather than high energy glass configurations.