Several calorimetric
measurements have shown that 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium
dicyanamide, [C2C1im][N(CN)2], is
a glass-forming liquid, even though it is a low-viscous liquid at
room temperature. Here, we found slow crystallization during cooling
of [C2C1im][N(CN)2] along Raman spectroscopy
measurements. The low-frequency range of the Raman spectrum shows that the same crystalline phase
is obtained at 210 K either by cooling or by reheating the glass (cold-crystallization).
Another crystalline phase is formed at ca. 260 K just prior the melting
at 270 K. X-ray diffraction and calorimetric measurements confirm
that there are two crystalline phases of [C2C1im][N(CN)2]. The Raman spectra indicate that polymorphism
is related to [C2C1im]+ with the
ethyl chain on the plane of the imidazolium ring (the low-temperature
crystal) or nonplanar (the high-temperature crystal). The structural
reason for the glass-forming ability of [C2C1im][N(CN)2], despite the relatively simple molecular structures
of the ions, was pursued by quantum chemistry calculations and molecular
dynamics (MD) simulations. Density functional theory calculations
were performed for ionic pairs in order to draw free-energy surfaces
of the anion around the cation. The MD simulations using a polarizable
model provided maps of occurrence of anions around cations. Both the
quantum and classical calculations suggest that the delocalization
of preferred positions of the anion around the cation, which adopts
different conformations of the ethyl chain, is on the origin of the
crystallization being hampered during cooling and the resulting glass-forming
ability of [C2C1im][N(CN)2].