Vapor deposition of a nonmesogen prepares highly structured organic glasses

We show that glasses with aligned smectic liquid crystal-like order can be produced by physical vapor deposition of a molecule without any equilibrium liquid crystal phases. Smectic-like order in vapor-deposited films was characterized by wide-angle X-ray scattering. A surface equilibration mechanism predicts the highly smectic-like vapor-deposited structure to be a result of significant vertical anchoring at the surface of the equilibrium liquid, and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy orientation analysis confirms this prediction. Understanding of the mechanism enables informed engineering of different levels of smectic order in vapor-deposited glasses to suit various applications. The preparation of a glass with orientational and translational order from a nonliquid crystal opens up an exciting paradigm for accessing extreme anisotropy in glassy solids.