Probing Toluene and Ethylbenzene Stable Glass Formation Using Inert Gas Permeation

Inert gas permeation is used to investigate the formation of stable glasses of toluene and ethylbenzene. The effect of deposition temperature (T(dep)) on the kinetic stability of the vapor deposited glasses is determined using Kr desorption spectra from within sandwich layers of either toluene or ethylbenzene. The results for toluene show that the most stable glass is formed at T(dep) = 0.92 T(g), although glasses with a kinetic stability within 50% of the most stable glass were found with deposition temperatures from 0.85 to 0.95 T(g). Similar results were found for ethylbenzene, which formed its most stable glass at 0.91 T(g) and formed stable glasses from 0.81 to 0.96 T(g). These results are consistent with recent calorimetric studies and demonstrate that the inert gas permeation technique provides a direct method to observe the onset of molecular translation motion that accompanies the glass to supercooled liquid transition.