Inorganic glasses and silicate melts – from theory to application

玻璃不仅是最古老的人造材料之一，玻璃科学也为社会的进步做出了巨大贡献，通过进一步了解玻璃在光学，技术，化学，建筑或医学等方面的应用，仅举几例。玻璃是我们日常生活中非常重要的材料，玻璃的使用也不断面临新的挑战。为了解决当前和新出现的挑战，不仅玻璃技术是关键，而且特别是玻璃科学。玻璃科学的一个主要挑战在于玻璃的性质，它结合了液体和固体物质的元素。与陶瓷和矿物相比，玻璃的液体伪性质允许准无限的化学成分，这种可变性对玻璃结构和性能的预测构成了重大挑战。尽管玻璃研究具有巨大的重要性，但德国该领域的学术研究人员数量一直在减少。为了在未来几年保持德国玻璃基础研究的高水平和竞争力，我们需要一个强大的玻璃科学社区和年轻科学家的基础，他们不仅是该领域的专家，而且有机会开始玻璃科学的学术生涯。通过为优秀的年轻博士后提供发展他们自己的研究想法的机会，并随后提交他们的第一份资助提案，早期职业研究者研讨会可以帮助为下一代学术玻璃研究的主要研究者铺平道路。从本质上讲，玻璃处于不同研究领域的边缘，如工程、理论物理、固态化学或地质熔体热力学。出于这个原因，提议的早期职业研究者研讨会专门针对来自所有这些领域的年轻博士后，不仅增加科学交流和互动，而且最终加强德国的玻璃研究领域。

Glass is not only one of the oldest man-made materials, glass science has also contributed greatly to the advancement of society by furthering our understanding of glasses used in optics, technology, chemistry, architecture or medicine, to name but a few. Glass constitutes a tremendously important material of our daily lives, and new challenges for glass uses arise continuously. To address current and newly arising challenges, not only glass technology is key, but particularly the science of glass. One main challenge in glass science lies in the nature of glass, which combines elements of both liquid and solid matter. In contrast to ceramics and minerals, the liquid pseudo-nature of glass allows quasi-infinite chemical compositions, and this variability constitutes a significant challenge for the prediction of glass structure and properties. Despite the enormous importance of glass research, the number of academic researchers in the field in Germany has been decreasing. In order to maintain fundamental glass research in Germany at a high and competitive level for future years, we need a strong glass science community and a basis of young scientists who are not only experts in the field but also have the opportunity to embark on an academic career in glass science. By giving excellent young postdocs the opportunity to develop their own research idea and, subsequently, submit their first grant proposal, a Workshop for Early Career Investigators can help to pave the way towards the next generation of principal investigators in academic glass research.By nature glass is situated at the border of different research fields, such as engineering, theoretical physics, solid-state chemistry or thermodynamics of geological melts. For this reason, the proposed Workshop for Early Career Investigators deliberately addresses young postdocs from all these areas to not only increase scientific exchange and interaction but, ultimately, strengthen the field of glass research in Germany.