Generating ultrastable glasses by homogenizing the local virial stress

Abstract

In recent years, the possibility of algorithmically preparing ultra-stable glasses (UG), i.e., states that lie very deep in the potential energy landscape, has considerably expanded our understanding of the glassy state. In this work, we report on a new protocol for ultrastable glass preparation that iteratively modifies the particle diameters to reduce local virial stress fluctuations. We apply the algorithm to an additive Lennard-Jones mixture and show that, compared to the states obtained via thermal annealing, virial homogenized glasses (VHG) are characterized by a considerable increase in both kinetic stability and the number of locally favored structures (icosahedra). We also consider the melting dynamics during heating ramps and show that it occurs via an accumulation of localized events. Our results highlight the connection between the thermodynamic and mechanical stability of ultra-stable glassy states.