UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., Aug. 17 -- Pennsylvania State University issued the following news release:
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Glass may look uniform, but some of the strongest and most useful glass materials contain carefully controlled crystals. Their size, number and arrangement can determine whether a material is strong enough for a smartphone screen, transparent enough for an optical device or durable enough for a dental crown.
Scientists still have difficulty observing how those crystals first form. That earliest stage, known as nucleation, influences everything that follows, yet occurs at a scale too small for conventional microscopes to capture. Researchers therefore often rely on repeated experiments to determine which glass compositi...