World's thinnest glass, just a molecule thick, discovered by accident

It isn't every day that researchers can create the world's thinnest glass pane. And it's even rarer when that feat was done by accident.

 

That accident landed graduate student Pinshane Huang and Prof. David Muller in the Guinness Book of World Records for the thinnest pane of glass at a molecule thick.

 

"At just a molecule thick, it’s a new record: The world’s thinnest sheet of glass, a serendipitous discovery by scientists at Cornell and Germany’s University of Ulm, is recorded for posterity in the Guinness Book of World Records," Cornell University said.

 

It said the glass is so thin its individual silicon and oxygen atoms can be "clearly visible via electron microscopy."

 

Cornell said the two-dimensional glass may have use in transistors, providing a defect-free, ultra-thin material that could improve performance of processors in computers, smartphones and similar devices.

 

The paper, “Direct Imaging of a Two-Dimensional Silica Glass on Graphene,” was published in Nano Letters on Jan. 23, 2012.

 

Its first authors Pinshane Huang, a Cornell graduate student, and Simon Kurash, a University of Ulm graduate student.

 

Collaborators include researchers from the University of Ulm, Germany; the Max Planck institute for Solid State Research in Germany; University of Vienna; University of Helsinki; and Aalto University in Finland.

 

Accident

 

Yet, Muller said the two-atom-thick glass was an accident, as the researchers had been making graphene, a 2D sheet of carbon atoms in a chicken wire crystal formation.

 

When they found “muck” on the graphene, a further inspection showed it was composed of silicon and oxygen, the elements of glass.

 

Picture of glass atoms

 

Cornell said its scientists have produced a picture of individual atoms of glass.

 

The product is a diagram similar to that drawn in 1932 by W.H. Zachariasen, "a longstanding theoretical representation of the arrangement of atoms in glass."

 

“This is the work that, when I look back at my career, I will be most proud of. It’s the first time that anyone has been able to see the arrangement of atoms in a glass,” Muller said. — TJD, GMA News