Development of self-recovery glass materials

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K18909
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 30:Applied physics and engineering and related fields
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Yamanoi Kohei 大阪大学, レーザー科学研究所, 准教授 (30722813)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-07-09 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ガラス材料

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Defects and fracture phenomena in crystals and glass have been studied for a long time. In recent years, organic glass and resins with self-repairing functions have been developed, but because these are organic materials, their use is limited to limited fields such as coatings. If a small crack occurs in inorganic crystals or glass (even if it is on the order of a few tens of nanometers), stress will concentrate from that point, causing easy fracture. This study has demonstrated the reproducibility of the glass crack recovery phenomenon discovered, and various measurements have revealed that the part of the mechanism is due to optical contact.

Free Research Field

光学材料

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Optical contactによる回復により、レンズなどの透明材料においては、自己修復材料として十分に機能できる。ガラス材料においては、僅かな割れがガラスの脆弱性を誘起するため、クラックの初期段階で自己修復するような材料を開発すれば、ガラスの脆弱性を克服することができる。本研究で示したように、自己修復機能により割れが修復される材料があれば、過酷環境用途のみならずスマートフォンの画面や車のフロントガラスなど、身近に存在する様々な用途にも応用が期待される。