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Cornell University graduate student Pinshane Huang and Professor David Muller with a model that depicts the atomic structure of glass. They were the first to directly image the world's thinnest sheet of glass. Credit: Jason Koski
An accidental discovery that has led to a greater understanding of the structure of glass is included in the latest Guinness Book Of World Records.
In an incredible story, researchers from Cornell University (USA) and University of Ulm (Germany), discovered a two atom thick silicon oxide by chance whilst creating another 2 dimensional material, graphene.
It is thought that the glass was produced due to an air leak in the procedure, causing a reaction between the quartz furnace and copper foils being used to produce the graphene.
Professor of Applied and Engineering at Cornell, David A. Muller, first identified the glass which is so thin that individual atoms are discernible using electron microscopy.
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Direct Imaging of a Two-Dimensional Silica Glass on Graphene. Credit: P.Y. Huang, S. Kurasch et al. Nano Lett. 12, 1081–1086 (2012).
This means that this wonderful chance discovery also gives a greater insight into the integral
structure of glass, as the individual atoms can now be pictured and bonding structures can be easily discerned.
The structure of glass has been the centre of some scientific debate for a number of decades – despite its solid behaviour it was thought to look more like a liquid in structure. Instead, thanks to the new discovery, glass has been found to have a similar structure to a diagram produced back in 1932 by Norwegian-American physicist William Houlder Zachariasen.
Furthermore, 2D glass may also have useful real-world applications in transistors, and could improve the performance of laptop and smartphone processors.
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A microscopic photo of a sheet of glass only two atoms thick blends with an artist's conception to show the structural rendering. Credit: Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science.
Original source: http://www.cornell.edu/
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