The Quest for the Ideal Glass

Most of the materials around us are structurally disordered, from window glass to emulsions to biological tissues. Scientists have long considered disordered materials as imperfect or defective versions of perfectly ordered crystals. Yet the concept of an `ideal' glass has fascinated scientists for decades. Can such a thing be defined rigorously? Is it possible, or even useful, to prepare quasi-ideal disordered materials?

In this talk, I will describe the fascinating world of amorphous materials and why physicists are interested in predicting and tuning their physical properties. The quest for a fundamental understanding of disordered materials has repeatedly led to the idea of an `ideal' glassy state or an 'optimal' random structure. Modern theories of disordered systems offer refined descriptions of these elusive concepts but have also raised difficult questions about their applicability for real systems. In the last few years, novel experimental and computational techniques have been developed that bring actual materials much closer to the ideal glass state. These recent developments reveal unexpected physical properties and shed new light on the very concept of an ideal glass state of matter.