| abstract |
The invention relates to high energy beam-sensitive glass articles exhibiting insensitivity and/or inertness to actinic radiation, glass articles which are darkened and/or colored within a thin surface layer of about 0.1-3 mu m upon exposure to a high energy beam, electron beam, and ion beams in particular, without a subsequent development step, and which need no fixing to stabilize the colored image, since both the recorded image and the glass article are insensitive to radiation in the spectral range of uv and longer wavelengths. The instant invention is concerned with Ag+ ion-exchanged glass articles having base glass within alkali metal silicate composition fields containing at least one of the oxides of transition metals which have one to four d-electrons in an atomic state. The base glass composition can be varied widely, spontaneous reduction as well as photo-reduction of Ag+ ions are inhibited and/or eliminated due to the presence of said transition metal oxides in the glass article. The product of the invention is suitable for use as recording and archival storage medium and as phototools. The recorded images and/or masking patterns are up-datable, can be any single color seen in the visible spectrum, and is erasable by heat at temperatures above about 200 DEG C. Heat erasure mode of recording in the high energy beam darkened glass article using a high intensity light beam, focused laser beam in particular, is described. |