Devitrified material is a kind of stone produced during the heat treatment of commercial soda-lime-silica glass, which is composed of acicular crystals in fan arrangement, up to a few millimeters. The existence of devitrified material will affect appearance and optical homogeneity of glass, thus reducing the use value of glass, so it has been considered as a flaw, and an object that manufacturers are trying to eliminate. Because it is considered as "flaw existence" in glass products, over the years, few people has conducted more in-depth study of its performance.

Cambridge University researchers published in the latest issue of "ACS Nano Journal" that their researchers have found that the devitrified crystals have a relatively high anisotropy, so that it can produce phase modulation effect of visible light, while inter-crystalline nano tiny gap makes visible light scatter in a large angle. Experimental results showed that the light diffusion angle is up to 120 degrees. The researchers said that this feature of devitrified matter enabled it to enjoy a lot of values in use. For example, the optical diffuser made of it enjoys low-cost and efficient features, and has broad application prospects.

Currently, light diffuser in the mainstream market is primarily made of sandblasted glass. For manufacturers, the manufacturing cost of such diffuser is a big problem. Engineering holographic diffuser that can effectively control light transmittance is expensive. To reduce the cost, it can only scatter light in a relatively uniform manner, and such diffuser has low utility, often fail to meet customer needs. Using devitrified material to manufacture optical diffuser can effectively solve this problem. On one hand, mass production of the devitrified products makes the cost much lower; on the other hand, the devitrified crystals are present in glass themselves, so high melting point of glass means the diffuser can withstand more than 500 ℃ high temperature and has strong resistance to damage.

In terms of performance, the light diffuser made of the devitrified material can not only realize effective control of light transmission, wider scattering angle of transmission light, and its performance is enough to meet users’ needs. In the future, in medical laser equipment, optical imaging equipment and routine household equipment and a series of fields, the light diffuser made of the devitrified material will have great application space.