Novel Glasses and Glass-Ceramics for Solar and Mobile Electronics
This talk demonstrates how an education in experimental petrology can provide a robust foundation for addressing industrial materials challenges across diverse application spaces, illustrated through two case studies: glass-ceramics for mobile electronics and glasses for solar panels.
The first study focuses on transparent gahnite glass-ceramics for chemically strengthened mobile device applications requiring high damage resistance. These composite materials comprise gahnite (ZnAlâÃÂÃÂOâÃÂÃÂ) nanocrystallites nucleated by tetragonal zirconia within residual glass matrices. The nanoscale dimensions (<20 nm) and overlapping nature of crystallites render conventional characterization techniques such as TEM inadequate. Atom probe tomography (APT) was employed to capture three-dimensional elemental distributions at nanometer resolution, revealing clustering of Zr and the proximal location of the nucleating agents relative to the main crystalline phase, gahnite. The data revealed the absence of core-shell crystallization around ZrOâÃÂàparticles, enabled direct quantification of residual glass compositions previously limited to mass balance calculations, and revealed the unexpected absence of chemical gradients at glass-crystal interfaces.
The second study addresses glass reliability challenges in bifacial solar panels, where the transition from monofacial 3.2 mm to bifacial 2.0 mm soda lime silicate glass (SLG) module designs has significantly increased breakage rates in hail-prone regions. Novel highly temperable glass compositions were developed that achieve 65-74% higher central tension compared to conventional SLG across 1.2-3.2 mm thickness ranges using established tempering processes. This advancement enables either equivalent performance at reduced thickness or enhanced durability at current bifacial module design thickness.
These case studies illustrate how geological training in mineralogy, phase equilibria, and high-temperature experimentation translates to industrial materials development for non-geological applications.
Bio: Alexandra (Alex) Mitchell is a glass scientist in the Devices & Systems Directorate and the leader of Corning’s solar research and development team. Alex has a Ph.D. in earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in geology & geophysics from Yale University. In her time at Corning, she has worked on optical fiber, antimicrobial glasses, and chemically strengthened glasses and glass-ceramics for mobile electronics applications leading to 20 granted U.S. patents.