Thermal properties of TPD-based organic glasses

Colombo, Luciano

Last

Conceptualization

;Dettori, Riccardo

2018-01-01

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Abstract

Glassy materials are condensed matter systems showing physical properties in between solids and liquids and retaining information about the thermal history they have been subjected to and the way they have been prepared. Formally, this implies that their configurational energy landscape is a complex multi-dimensional surface, showing quite a few basins with different depths, widths, and shapes: the system can be trapped in any of them, assuming very unlike physical properties. Recently, it has been demonstrated experimentally that a glassy system can be grown by physical vapor deposition of organic molecules on a substrate. The physics of such organic glasses is enriched by a new feature, namely: the anisotropic molecular structure of the basic building blocks used to assemble the film. TPD-based organic glasses have been generated by atomistic simulations that mimic vapor deposition and their thermal properties have been accordingly calculated. Simulations generate a rational phenomenology, providing robust evidence that heat transfer is not isotropic but, rather, correlated to an inherent molecular property, namely the axial structure of the TPD molecule. Furthermore, we present the first theoretical prediction of the specific heat trend versus temperature, showing in the quantum regime an intriguing anomaly with respect to crystalline systems.