Unbreakable Glass

By coping the way sea shells are formed, scientists have created an essentially unbreakable glass that can have its color and transparency tuned.

Scientists from McGill University develop stronger and tougher glass, inspired by the inner layer of mollusk shells. Instead of shattering upon impact, the new material has the resiliency of plastic and could be used to improve cell phone screens in the future, among other applications.

More on the glass,

“Until now there were trade-offs between high strength, toughness, and transparency,” says Allen Ehrlicher, corresponding author of the study. “Our new material is not only three times stronger than the normal glass, but also more than five times more fracture resistant.”

The team says that the method should be scalable, and the resulting material could be useful for making stronger displays for smartphones and other devices. In future work the researchers plan to investigate ways to change the color, conductivity and other properties of the material.