Materials combining optical transparency and mechanical strength are highly demanded for electronic displays, structural windows and in the arts, but the oxide-based glasses currently used in most of these applications suffer from brittle fracture and low crack tolerance. We report a simple approach to fabricate bulk transparent materials with a nacre-like architecture that can effectively arrest the propagation of cracks during fracture. Mechanical characterization shows that our glass-based composites exceed up to a factor of 3 the fracture toughness of common glasses, while keeping flexural strengths comparable to transparent polymers, silica- and soda-lime glasses. Due to the presence of stiff reinforcing platelets, the hardness of the obtained composites is an order of magnitude higher than that of transparent polymers. By implementing biological design principles into glass-based materials at the microscale, our approach opens a promising new avenue for the manufacturing of structural materials combining antagonistic functional properties.

A radioluminescent (RL) dosimetric system, based on a SiO2 optical fiber with the core doped by Ce3+ ions as luminescent activators has been investigated. Structural and optical properties of the luminescent fiber have been studied by Raman, refractive index, RL and scintillation time decay measurements, and compared to those obtained on bulk material. The RL response of a composite fiber made of a short portion of active Ce-doped fiber coupled to a long commercial one has been investigated by x-ray irradiation. A linear RL intensity response has been found in the dose rate interval 6×10−3–40mGy∕s together with a good radiation hardness, suggesting possible application in low-dose monitoring.