Orientational anisotropy in simulated vapor-deposited molecular glasses

Orientational anisotropy in simulated vapor-deposited molecular glasses. Ivan Lyubimov et al (2015), The Journal of Chemical Physics http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4928523 Enhanced kinetic stability of vapor-deposited glasses has been established for a variety of glass organic formers. Several recent reports indicate that vapor-deposited glasses can be orientationally anisotropic. In this work, we present results of extensive molecular simulations that mimic a number of features of the experimental vapor deposition process. The simulations are performed on a generic coarse-grained model and an all-atom representation of N,N′-bis(3-methylphenyl)-N,N′-diphenylbenzidine (TPD), a small organic molecule whose vapor-deposited glasses exhibit considerable orientational anisotropy. The coarse-grained model adopted here is found to reproduce several key aspects reported in experiments. In particular, the molecular orientation of vapor-deposited glasses is observed to depend on substrate temperatu