Glass: Home of the Periodic Table

Abstract

Glass is the most common material around us, and humankind uses it every day for more than 5000 years. However, from the chemical point of view, glass is the only material that could represent almost all elements of the Periodic Table inside itself, showing the effect of the Periodic Law on properties of the final material. In this paper, we show the most remarkable examples demonstrating that glass can rightfully be called "home" for all chemical elements providing different properties depending on its composition. We gave a new look at the Periodic Table and described how a small number of glass-forming components creates unique glass structure which could enclose almost all remaining elements including transition and noble metals, lanthanides and actinides as modifying components providing an inconceivable number of discoveries in material science. Moreover, we reviewed a series of studies on the direct femtosecond laser writing in glasses which paves the way for a redistribution of chemical elements in the spatially confined nanosized zone in glass volume providing unique properties of laser-induced structures. Finally, for the first time, we reproduce the Periodic Table in birefringence colors in the bulk of silica glass using a direct laser writing technique. This image of 3.6 × 2.4 mm size can withstand temperature up to 900 • C, humidity, electromagnetic fields, powerful cosmic and reactor radiation and other environmental factors and demonstrates both the art of direct laser writing and symbolic role of glass as the safest and eternal home for the Periodic Table.

In‐Volume Laser Direct Writing of Silicon—Challenges and Opportunities

“…A last application of negative refractive index changes induced by nanosecond laser pulses is data storage. While laser‐writing is a well‐established technique for eternal data storage in glasses, [ 194,195 ] it had no equivalent in silicon until recently. Tokel et al.…”

Ultra-broadband Plasmon Resonance in Gold Nanoparticles Precipitated in ZnO-Al2O3-SiO2 Glass

“…One of the most perfect media for the development of optical materials utilizing the advantages of gold NPs and REI interactions is glass. The incorporation of gold NPs into glass matrices provides a promising platform for exploiting the LSPR phenomena, enabling novel applications in optics, sensing, and photonics [9]. Hence, beyond their aesthetic appeal, glasses embedded with gold NPs have garnered significant interest for applications in photonics and nonlinear optics [10,11].…”

Ultra-Broadband Plasmon Resonance in Gold Nanoparticles Precipitated in ZnO-Al2O3-SiO2 Glass

“…One of the most suitable media for the development of optical materials utilizing the advantages of gold NPs and REI interactions is glass. The incorporation of gold NPs into glass matrices provides a promising platform for exploiting the LSPR phenomena, enabling novel applications in optics, sensing, and photonics [9]. Hence, beyond their aesthetic appeal, glasses embedded with gold NPs have garnered significant interest for applications in photonics and nonlinear optics [10,11].…”