Microstructure-guided glass ceramics design via physics transfer

Glass ceramics are functional materials created through controlled crystallization of base glasses, combining properties of both glasses and ceramics. Typically with crystallinity below 0.9, their crystal sizes, from nanometers to micrometers, are governed by processing conditions and nucleating agents. Smaller crystals enhance optical transparency, while larger ones improve mechanical strength, making the optimization of this tradeoff a critical challenge in composition and process design. We address this challenge quantitatively using continuum-level multiphysics modeling for both electromagnetic wave propagation and material fracture, which generate guiding curves for optimal property selection. Integrating these models incorporating microstructure effects and experimental data where the chemistry is encoded, we establish a comprehensive composition-processing-microstructure-properties map. Crucially, the one-to-one mapping from the microstructure space to the performance enables a physics transfer approach, supporting data-driven glass development of glass ceramics with tailored optical and mechanical properties, for reduced experimental costs and accelerated processes of material design.