What Is Driving the Growth of Inorganic Glass in Smart Materials and Opto-Electronic Devices?

Abstract

Inorganic glass is a transparent functional material and one of the few materials that keeps leading innovation. In the last decades, inorganic glass was integrated into opto-electronic devices such as optical fibers, semiconductors, solar cells, transparent photovoltaic devices, or photonic crystals and in smart materials applications such as environmental, pharmaceutical, and medical sensors, reinforcing its influence as an essential material and providing potential growth opportunities for the market. Moreover, inorganic glass is the only material that is 100% recyclable and can incorporate other industrial offscourings and/or residues to be used as raw materials. Over time, inorganic glass experienced an extensive range of fabrication techniques, from traditional melting-quenching (with an immense diversity of protocols) to chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), and wet chemistry routes as sol-gel and solvothermal processes. Additive manufacturing (AM) was recently added to the list. Bulks (3D), thin/thick films (2D), flexible glass (2D), powders (2D), fibers (1D), and nanoparticles (NPs) (0D) are examples of possible inorganic glass architectures able to integrate smart materials and opto-electronic devices, leading to added-value products in a wide range of markets. In this review, selected examples of inorganic glasses in areas such as: (i) magnetic glass materials, (ii) solar cells and transparent photovoltaic devices, (iii) photonic crystal, and (iv) smart materials are presented and discussed.

A highly transparent and photothermal composite coating for effective anti-/de-icing of glass surfaces

“…Glass is an amorphous inorganic non-metallic material, the chemical composition including Na 2 SiO 3 , CaSiO 3 , SiO 2 or Na 2 O-CaO-6SiO 2 , etc., 1 which is widely used for good transparency in buildings and other elds. 2 Although the hydroxyl groups existing on the surface of fresh glass play an important role in its good hydrophilicity, 3 the temperature difference between the inside and outside in winter will easily enable the droplets to cling on the glass surface and therefore condense to ice, 4 which has a potential hazard in daily life. 5 For example, icing on the car's front windshield will affect the visibility 6 and the rapid change of temperature leads to bursting of the glass.…”

Supramolecular glasses with color-tunable circularly polarized afterglow through evaporation-induced self-assembly of chiral metal–organic complexes

“…Glassy compounds, such as inorganics 9 , organics 10 , and current MOFs 11 , are a large material family that has made enormous scientific and engineering contributions to human society. These include applications in optics, electronics, heat-insulation, anti-corrosion, and many others 12 – 15 .…”

Macroscopic Assembly of Chiral Hydrogen‐bonded Metal‐free Supramolecular Glasses for Enhanced Color‐tunable Ultralong Room Temperature Phosphorescence

“…For the fast development of human society, glassy materials (e.g., metallic, inorganic, organic, and polymer systems), [14–17] exhibit appealing advantages in constructing optical units, including high transparency, improved shaping ability, mechanical rigidity and durability (Table S1). For example, the doping of rare‐earth ions into inorganic glasses has been extensively used in optical fibers and lasers for information communications [18, 19] .…”

“…[20][21][22] To date, as an alternative to the high-cost noble metals and rare-earth components, it is still highly desirable to fabricate new types of super-sized metal-free glasses towards novel photonic applications. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, most of current glass preparation methods (such as vapor deposition and melting-quenching processes) are time-and energy-consuming, [14][15][16][17] and the glass formation is usually under harsh conditions (e.g., at high temperature), which may cause the degradation of molecular systems and quench of luminescence. Hence, it is of great importance to develop a facile and environment-friendly strategy for the fabrication of large-sized glasses at the macroscopic level towards easy operation and practical usage.…”