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We investigate bulk thermodynamic and microscopic structural properties ofamorphous solids in the framework of the phase-field crystal (PFC) model. Theseare metastable states with a non-uniform density distribution having nolong-range order. From extensive numerical simulations we determine thedistribution of free energy density values in varying size amorphous systemsand also the point-to-set correlation length, which is the radius of thelargest volume of amorphous one can take while still having the particlearrangements within the volume determined by the particle ordering at thesurface of the chosen volume. We find that in the thermodynamic limit, the freeenergy density of the amorphous tends to a value that has a slight dependenceon the initial state from which it was formed -- i.e.\ it has a formationhistory dependence. The amorphous phase is observed to form on both sides ofthe liquid linear-stability limit, showing that the liquid to amorphoustransition is first order, with an associated finite free energy barrier whenthe liquid is metastable. In our simulations this is demonstrated when noise inthe initial density distribution is used to induce nucleation events from themetastable liquid. Depending on the strength of the initial noise, we observe avariety of nucleation pathways, in agreement with previous results for the PFCmodel, and which show that amorphous precursor mediated multi-step crystalnucleation can occur in colloidal systems.

Thermodynamics, formation dynamics and structural correlations in the bulk amorphous phase of the phase-field crystal model