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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 90 » Issue 7
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 075504 (2003) [4 pages]

Glass Breaks like Metal, but at the Nanometer Scale

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F. Célarié1, S. Prades2, D. Bonamy1,2, L. Ferrero1, E. Bouchaud2, C. Guillot2, and C. Marlière1
1Laboratoire des Verres, UMR CNRS-UM2 5587, Université Montpellier 2, C.C. 69 Place Bataillon, F-34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
2Service de Physique et Chimie des Surfaces et Interfaces, DSM/DRECAM/SPCSI, CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette, France

Received 1 July 2002; published 21 February 2003

See accompanying Physics Focus

We report in situ atomic force microscopy experiments which reveal the presence of nanoscale damage cavities ahead of a stress-corrosion crack tip in glass. Their presence might explain the departure from linear elasticity observed in the vicinity of a crack tip in glass. Such a ductile fracture mechanism, widely observed in the case of metallic materials at the micrometer scale, might be also at the origin of the striking similarity of the morphologies of fracture surfaces of glass and metallic alloys at different length scales.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.075504
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.075504
PACS:
62.20.Mk, 81.40.Np, 87.64.Dz
 
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