JERUSALEM, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A team of researchers has developed a new type of glass that forms spontaneously upon contact with water and has unique properties, such as self-repairment, Israel's Tel Aviv University (TAU) said in a statement on Sunday.
The new glass is made of biological building blocks. It is very hard and adhesive, capable of bonding different glasses together and mending any cracks that form within it, according to the research, which has been published in the journal Nature.
On the other hand, it has a broad spectral transparency, ranging from visible light to the mid-infrared range, much more solid than ordinary glass.
The TAU indicated that the innovative glass could revolutionize industries such as optics and electro-optics, satellite communication, remote sensing, and biomedicine.
Typically, glass is manufactured by rapidly cooling molten materials, "freezing" them in an amorphous state before they crystallize, resulting in unique optical, chemical, and mechanical properties, along with durability, versatility, and sustainability.
In this latest study, researchers discovered a unique peptide that behaves differently from known materials, forming an amorphous, disordered structure that describes glass.
This new glass forms spontaneously without the need for energy inputs like high heat or pressure, merely by dissolving a powder in water, similar to making a flavored drink mix.
The aromatic peptide, which consists of a three-tyrosine amino acid sequence, forms a molecular glass upon evaporation of an aqueous solution at room temperature.
The team has already made lenses from this new glass. Instead of undergoing a lengthy grinding and polishing process, they simply dripped a drop onto a surface, controlling its curvature, and thus its focus, by adjusting the solution volume.
TAU researcher Ehud Gazit, one of the study's leaders, said that the new glass type has a set of properties that does not exist in any other glass in the world, offering significant potential in science and engineering, all derived from a single peptide, one small piece of protein. ■
