This was the third time that a window cracked on an ANA Dreamliner, but the cockpit window has five layers, and Friday's crack, in a spider web pattern, appeared in the outer layer, ANA said.

CNN: Dreamliner safety review: What it means for fliers

Belcher's colleague Paula Hammond, an expert in making highly ordered, self-assembling polymers and other materials, created a pattern of tiny posts, onto which the researchers deposited several layers of polymers that act as the battery's electrolyte.

FORBES: Breakthroughs

Several buffer layers of non-superconducting material are deposited on top to refine the pattern.

ECONOMIST: Inside story