Nature-inspired display material
Have you ever wished your mobile phone display was unbreakable? Researchers from ETH Zurich imitate materials from nature to create transparent materials with high fracture resistance.
Researchers from the Complex Materials group and the Multifunctional Materials group have developed a manufacturing route to tune the levels of mineral bridges and platelet interconnectivity in a transparent glass-?platelets reinforced composite. These bulk transparent materials show an unprecedented combination of strength and fracture toughness, that can potentially fulfil currently unmet demands in electronic displays and related technologies.
Bulk materials with remarkable mechanical properties have been developed by incorporating design principles of biological nacre into synthetic composites. However, this potential has not yet been fully leveraged for the fabrication of tough and strong materials that are also optically transparent. In a recent Advanced Functional Materials publication, researchers in the Complex Materials group, Multifunctional Materials and of the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics (CASC, Imperial College, UK), have developed a manufacturing route that enables the formation of nacre-?like mineral bridges in a bioinspired composite consisting of glass platelets infiltrated with an index-?matching polymer matrix.
Contact / Links:
Complex Materials Group, Prof. Andre Studart
Multifunctional Materials Group, Prof. Markus Niederberger
Publications:
external pageAdvanced Functional Materials (2020)
external pageNature Communications (2019)
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