Evidence of a 'glassy crystal' phase obtained by the quenching of the plastic phase of the cyanoadamantane

The authors present experimental results which show the existence of a 'glassy crystal' phase obtained by the quenching of the 1-cyanoadamantane plastic phase. From the DSC data, the glass transition temperature has been obtained and the glassy crystalline 1-cyanoadamantane has been shown to relax during annealing at 160K. The 'glassy crystal' is cubic (FCC) and is characterised by the vanishing of some low-frequency Raman contributions of the plastic phase.