Mechanical collapse vs ideal glass formation in slowly vitrified solutions: A plausibility test

Abstract

Homogeneous nucleation temperatures TH for binary solutions have been measured using the emulsion technique. From their composition dependence it is argued that the excess entropy paradox (Kauzmann paradox) for supercooling liquids cannot reasonably be resolved by postulating the intercession of a first order phase change (homogeneous nucleation anticipating mechanical instability) prior to the exhaustion of the excess entropy reservoir at T0. There are evidently composition ranges in which TH lies below T0. This observation implies that in certain ’’clean’’ solutions the ’’ideal glass’’ state can in principle be approached.