The orientational glass transition in pentachloronitrobenzene: a study by differential scanning calorimetry and thermally stimulated currents Original Research Article

The orientational disorder that is a feature of the crystalline pentachloronitrobenzene above ∼−82 °C, can be frozen by cooling to produce an orientational glass. The number of degrees of freedom frozen on cooling, or released on heating, in this orientational glass transition is low, so that the heat capacity change associated with this transition is expected to be small. In the present work, we show that the calorimetric signature of this orientational glass transition is in fact very weak. Conversely, since the molecular motions associated with this relaxation drag strong dipoles, the technique of thermally stimulated depolarisation currents (TSDC) provides a very strong signature of this transition. The orientational glass transition in pentachloronitrobenzene was studied by TSDC and, from this study, it was shown that this orientational glass belongs to the class of very strong glasses in the fragility scale proposed by Angell.