Crystal growth kinectics and viscous flow study for lithium diborate glass

• Grant number: 12/15411-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2013
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Materials and Metallurgical Engineering - Nonmetallic Materials
• Principal Investigator: Edgar Dutra Zanotto
• Grantee: João Marcos Conradi Baldin
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

A possible decoupling between the crystallization and viscous flow kinetics near the glass transition temperature Tg (for undercooled liquids) is an old issue but was recently verified for the lithium disilicate glass. In this work, we plan to advance towards the generalization of this phenomenon by measuring nucleation and crystal growth rates for the same batch of lithium diborate glass. This glass is one of the few known materials that reveal homogeneous nucleation (i.e. into the volume) measurable in laboratory time scales. Moreover, the possibility of carrying crystal growth measurements below Tg (due to the high crystal growth rate), allows a deep study of the kinetics of interest in a wide range of temperatures. We expect that the results obtained in this work advance in the understanding of glass science in general.(AU)