Project description
Non-thermal fluidisation accesses extreme states in glasses for novel applications
Glasses are amorphous solids lacking long-range order, typically formed from a melt by cooling to rigidity without crystallisation. The optical, electrical and thermal properties of glasses are harnessed in numerous applications. The EU-funded GLAXES project is investigating glasses at the two extremes of their stability range: ultra-stable ideal glasses with almost no defects and ultra-unstable defect-saturated glasses. The project will achieve these extreme states by harnessing X-ray irradiation rather than heat to ‘melt’ the materials. The ability to control the defect density of glasses will lead to materials with unprecedented properties for novel applications including noise-free mechanical resonators, high-performance superconducting qubits for quantum computers and phase-change materials for applications in data storage.
Objective
I will address the fundamental question of what exactly are and how to prepare glasses at the extremes of their stability range: ultra-stable, ideal glasses on the one side and ultra-unstable, defect-saturated glasses on the opposite side. The ideal glass, predicted by some theories of the glass-transition but not yet observed, is a novel equilibrium state of matter characterized by a fairly unique, dense atomic structure with almost no defects. The defect-saturated glass is instead ductile, at odds with conventional glasses: any additional defect self-heals. I will reach these extraordinary states employing a non-thermal fluidization route activated by X-ray irradiation. Its non-equilibrium nature is key here: conventional thermal treatments, that induce structural changes stabilized by quenching, modify the properties of glasses only over a limited range. My project aims then at:
1. producing ideal and defect-saturated glasses;
2. developing a general scheme to control the stability of glasses;
3. establishing experimentally the connection between their thermodynamic properties and their density of defects;
4. clarifying the microscopic mechanism of X-ray induced fluidization;
5. describing the glass-specificity of this effect in terms of amorphous plasticity.
The importance of these extreme glasses is however not only fundamental: the reduced (zero?) density of defects makes the ideal glass mechanically and optically loss-free; a defect-saturated glass, instead, deforms under load and crystallizes very rapidly. Their properties are therefore enabling for new technological applications ranging from noise-free mechanical resonators, superconducting qubits with sufficient coherence for quantum computers and phase-change materials for applications as memories.
The long-term vision is that the knowledge of how to measure and control the density of defects in glasses will lead to materials with extraordinary properties of relevance for many important applications.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
35122 Padova
Italy