Glass Fragility and Atomic Ordering on the Intermediate and Extended Range

Journal Article · Fri Jun 16 04:00:00 EDT 2006 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.235502· OSTI ID:20777286

Salmon, Philip S; Martin, Richard A ^[1]; Barnes, Adrian C ^[2]; Cuello, Gabriel J ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY (United Kingdom)
2. HH Wills Physics Laboratory, Royal Fort, University of Bristol, BS8 1TL (United Kingdom)
3. Institut Laue-Langevin, Boite Postale 156, F-38042, Grenoble Cedex 9 (France)

The relation between the fragility of glass-forming systems, a parameter which describes many of their key physical characteristics, and atomic scale structure is investigated by using neutron diffraction to measure the topological and chemical ordering for germania, or GeO{sub 2}, which is an archetypal strong glass former. We find that the ordering for this and other tetrahedral network-forming glasses at distances greater than the nearest neighbor can be rationalized in terms of an interplay between the relative importance of two length scales. One of these is associated with an intermediate range, the other with an extended range and, with increasing glass fragility, it is the extended range ordering which dominates.

• OSTI ID: 20777286
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 23 Vol. 96; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
GERMANIUM OXIDES
GLASS
MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
NEUTRON DIFFRACTION
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES