What we can learn from crystals about the mechanical properties of glass

Abstract

Glasses and crystals from the same chemical system mostly share the same interatomic bond strength. Nevertheless, they differ by the arrangement of bonds in space, which gives birth to different atomic packing efficiencies. We show in this review that as far as the elastic moduli and hardness are concerned, the atomic packing density predominates over the bond strength. The shear modulus of a glass is usually much smaller than the one of the crystallized polymorphs, thanks to a more efficient packing of atoms in the latter. In contrast, the increase in hardness is quite limited, likely because of the additional contribution of dislocation activity to the deformation processes beneath the indenter in the case of crystals (shear plasticity). We also show that the occurrence of chemical heterogeneities (weak channels) at the mesoscopic scale in glasses, which is often associated with the lack of long range atomic ordering, promotes easy fracture paths and is responsible for the low toughness and fracture surface energy.