The CNR/PAS bilateral project involves researchers and associates from the ICCOM-CNR site in Pisa and researchers from the Henrik Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics in Krakow. The project, the result of a multi-year collaboration between the research groups of prof. Miroslav Galazka and dr. Lucia Calucci, aims to study the polymorphism and structural and dynamic properties of organic materials that give rise to a glassy phase under specific temperature conditions, with a special focus on soft materials that exhibit orientationally (ODIC) or conformationally (CONDIS) disordered liquid-crystalline or crystalline phases.

The project combines the physical expertise of the PAS research group, which has a long tradition in the study of mesophases by means of dielectric spectroscopy and calorimetry and, more recently, infrared spectroscopy and computational chemistry, with the chemical-physical expertise of the ICCOM-CNR group with decades of experience in the study of soft materials by means of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and relaxometry. The combination of these skills enables a detailed characterisation of the dynamic processes that govern phase transitions and, in particular, the glass transition at the molecular level. Knowledge of these processes is important for understanding the phase behaviour of materials that give glassy phases, both at a fundamental level and for their applications in various fields, including new technologies, food preservation and drug formulation.