Imaging Atomic Rearrangements in Two-Dimensional Silica Glass: Watching Silica’s Dance

Abstract

Glassy Eyed In crystalline materials, the collective motion of atoms in one- and two-dimensional defects—like dislocations and stacking faults—controls the response to an applied strain, but how glassy materials change their structure in response to strain is much less clear. Huang et al. (p. 224 ; see the Perspective by Heyde ) used advanced-transmission electron microscopy to investigate the structural rearrangements in a two-dimensional glass, including the basis for shear deformations and the atomic behavior at the glass/liquid interface.