Enabled by surface-mediated equilibration, physical vapour deposition can create high-density stable glasses comparable with liquid-quenched glasses aged for millions of years. Deposition is often performed at various rates and temperatures on rigid substrates to control the glass properties. Here we demonstrate that on soft, rubbery substrates, surface-mediated equilibration is enhanced up to 170 nm away from the interface, forming stable glasses with densities up to 2.5% higher than liquid-quenched glasses within 2.5 h of deposition. Gaining similar properties on rigid substrates would require 10 million times slower deposition, taking ~3,000 years. Controlling the modulus of the rubbery substrate provides control over the glass structure and density at constant deposition conditions. These results underscore the significance of substrate elasticity in manipulating the properties of the mobile surface layer and thus the glass structure and properties, allowing access to deeper states of the energy landscape without prohibitively slow deposition rates.

通过表面介导的平衡，物理气相沉积可以制造出与老化了数百万年的液体淬火玻璃相当的高密度稳定玻璃。通常在刚性基材上以不同的速率和温度进行沉积以控制玻璃性能。在这里，我们证明，在柔软的橡胶基材上，表面介导的平衡在距界面 170 nm 处增强，在沉积 2.5 小时内形成稳定的玻璃，其密度比液体淬火玻璃高出 2.5%。要在刚性基材上获得类似的特性，沉积速度需要慢 1000 万倍，大约需要 3,000 年。控制橡胶基材的模量可以在恒定的沉积条件下控制玻璃结构和密度。这些结果强调了基底弹性在操纵移动表面层的特性以及玻璃结构和特性方面的重要性，允许在不降低沉积速率的情况下获得更深层的能量状态。