Minerals and Crystals in Glass

Dear Colleagues,

Glass, both natural and synthetic, is generally described as a homogeneous amorphous material, but, as a matter of fact, some glass samples are rather heterogeneous materials, composed of a glassy matrix and crystalline phases, and, depending on the ratio between amorphous and crystalline phases, they can be also defined as glass-ceramics. The crystalline phases identified in glass are both newly formed crystals, precipitated, intentionally and/or unintentionally, due to suitable chemical compositions of batch, and melting conditions (e.g., wollastonite, calcium-tin silicates, calcium or lead antimonates, cuprite, and so on), and, in the case of synthetic glass, minerals, which are considered residues of used raw materials (e.g., quartz, feldspars, zircon and so on). In particular, the newly formed crystals in glass can be tailored by controlling the base-glass composition and by controlled heat treatment/crystallization of base glass and are, sometimes, produced by means of complex and various (nano)-technological processes, to impart specific thermomechanical, electrical, and/or optical properties. Therefore, the study of these crystals and minerals represents a stimulating yet challenging field of research and is proving an important tool to understand (ancient) glass-making formation and/or technology, because these inhomogeneities record phases of production history and formation processes, and allow to infer the provenance signatures of the raw materials. In this context, taking into account strict analogies that exist between the glass-crystals formation and magmatic processes, methods and analytical approaches of Earth Sciences appear to be particularly suitable for identifying chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic compositions, and micro-textures of minerals and crystals in glass and their relationships with formation processes and/or production technologies.

This Special Issue invites contributions (research papers and reviews), that deal with chemical, mineralogical, spectroscopic, micro-textural, and isotopic characterisation of minerals and crystals identified in natural and synthetic glass, in order to address questions related to the source, type and provenance of raw materials, and to describe the production technologies and formation processes of such kind of materials. In addition, papers on experimental replicas in controlled physico-chemical conditions, aiming to synthesise innovative and ancient-like materials or with tailorable thermomechanical, electrical, and/or optical properties, to test the different hypotheses on the nucleation and growth processes of the minerals and crystals identified in glass, and to propose interpretative models, will be also considered.

Prof. Alberta Silvestri
Guest Editor

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