According to the news of www.livescience.com (October 10), the picture published by Science magazine shows the glass is like a piece of crystal in local micro-region with atoms arranged in the form of regular matrix. While in the longer range, the disorder of atoms determines its suppleness. The newest findings may help scientists probe into how the glass to bend and break.
The research group shines a bundle of electron over the world thinnest glass sheet to stimulate molecule movement. A microscope captures molecule rearrangement with real-time video. The researchers also reveal the change of liquid phase with amorphous state or crystalline state of glass under shear force condition. “Closure of ring structure and the subsequent rearrangement can be directly observed, so the research result provides new basis for building model of atomic structure and dynamic within glass”, written by Material scientist Marcus Hyde, a member of German Max Planck Society Fritz Haber Research Institute, in the review article distributed with Science magazine.
The report indicates that by using of new imaging technology, the problem “how the structure characteristics will be changed when adding different materials into glasses” can be studied as well, which may also affects other materials without regular structure excepting glass.