Discovery of Ultra-Crack-Resistant Oxide Glasses with Adaptive Networks

Abstract

Despite their transformative role in our society, oxide glasses remain brittle. Although extrinsic postprocessing techniques can partially mitigate this drawback, they come with undesirable side effects. Alternatively, topological engineering offers an attractive option to enhance the intrinsic strength and damage resistance of glass. On the basis of this approach, we report here the discovery of a novel melt-quenched lithium aluminoborate glass featuring the highest crack resistance ever reported for a bulk oxide glass. Relying on combined mechanical and structural characterizations, we demonstrate that this unusual damage resistance originates from a significant self-adaptivity of the local atomic topology under stress, which, based on a selection of various oxide glasses, is shown to control crack resistance. This renders the lithium aluminoborate glass a promising candidate for engineering applications, such as ultrathin, yet ultrastrong, protective screens.

Breaking the Limit of Micro‐Ductility in Oxide Glasses

“…There are several recent examples in using this strategy, e.g., silicon oxycarbides, [13] lithium aluminoborates, [14] and binary aluminosilicates synthesized using container-less melting technique. There are several recent examples in using this strategy, e.g., silicon oxycarbides, [13] lithium aluminoborates, [14] and binary aluminosilicates synthesized using container-less melting technique.…”

“…[16] Such measure of local brittleness is of practical importance, since radial cracks, propagating perpendicular to the glass surface (and induced by contact damage), are the strength-limiting factor for many applications. The reduction of the residual stress can be achieved by designing glasses with large free volume [13,19] or with self-adaptive networks [14] where structural rearrangements promote densification, by controlling rigidity fluctuations at the nanoscale, [20] or by shear-induced plasticity. The reduction of the residual stress can be achieved by designing glasses with large free volume [13,19] or with self-adaptive networks [14] where structural rearrangements promote densification, by controlling rigidity fluctuations at the nanoscale, [20] or by shear-induced plasticity.…”

Structural elucidation of NASICON (Na3Al2P3O12) based glass electrolyte materials: effective influence of boron and gallium

“…Closer observation of the asymmetric nature towards the lower chemical shi values of the peak at 15.8 ppm clearly indicated the presence of two distinct BO 3 units [BO 3 (ring) and BO 3 (non-ring)] in the NCABP glass structure. 52 Nevertheless, the presence of a peak intensity at 15.8 ppm mainly indicated the presence of a high concentration of BO 3 (ring) type units, which are typically found in borate networks. Fig.…”

New Challenges for the Pressure Evolution of the Glass Temperature

“…The reliable knowledge of T g (P) description seems to be essential for silicate glasses, in which practically important features are created due to the high pressure-high temperature annealing with induced "exotic" features preserved after decompressing. They are, for instance: (i) the notable increase of density, (ii) the increase of hardness, and (iii) the anty-cracking ability (Smedskjaer et al, 2014;Januchta et al, 2016Januchta et al, , 2017Svenson et al, 2017). Still puzzling is the description of T g (P) behavior in systems where dT g /dP < 0 (Donth, 2000;Drozd-Rzoska et al, 2007a,b, 2008.…”