A glass as strong as steel

Can be glass as strong as steel? Researchers at The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute have created it at lab scale.
Getting a glass that will not break when falling or crashing with another object would be great, right? This group of scientists have achieved what until recently was science fiction: a glass stronger than many metals and at the level of steels.
This glass is achieved by adding large amounts of aluminum oxide (alumina – Al2O3) and tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) by aerodynamic levitation. So far when trying to add these elements to the mix to achieve greater strength of the glass, reactions of the silicon oxide (Si2O3) from the glass were produced with the container of the mixture. One of the advances that has made it possible, it is the generation of a state of levitation created by a flow of oxygen holding the mixture and that is heated by two CO2 lasers (how much we like in ATRIA lasers!).
The resulting glass has a Young’s modulus of 158.3 GPa, higher than the standard glass that it is between 50 and 90 GPa, superior also to aluminum with 70 GPa, titanium with its 110 GPa and getting closer to steels which are 200 GPa. Also it has a hardness of 9.14 GPa Vickers and maintains its transparency.

Applications will be unimaginable: screens for mobile phones, cars made completely from glass, unbreakable glass crockery, endless windows … And for you, which would be the perfect application of this new material? Let us know by Twitter!
Source: High Elastic Moduli of a 54Al2O3- 46Ta2O5 Glass Fabricated via Containerless Processing. Gustavo A. Rosales-Sosa1, Atsunobu Masuno1, Yuji Higo2, et al. 1. The University of Tokyo, Japan. 2. Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, Japan. Scientific Reports | 5:15233 | DOI: 10.1038/srep15233