Role of structure in ion movement of glasses. Final report, July 1, 1990--December 31, 1995

The ion movement in inorganic glasses is key to their optimum use in various applications such as solid electrolytes, durable nuclear waste form, stable insulation in electronic devices etc. The primary objective of this project was to understand ion movement in relation to the physical structure of inorganic glasses. Five different glass forming systems were selected for systematically varying different aspects of the structure and determining their influence on ion dynamics: (1) binary Rb and K germanate glass series; (2) mixed (Rb, Ag) and (Rb, K) germanate glass series (3) high purity quartz amorphized by neutron irradiation (4) sodium triborate glasses with different melt conditions and (5) heavy metal fluoride glasses. A two-pronged research program was developed: on the one hand dc ionic conductivity and ac relaxation were measured for a variety of oxide and fluoride glasses as a function of composition, temperature and frequency to characterize long and short range ion transport phenomena. The ion movement was also observed in terms of nuclear spin relaxation rate at University of Dortmund, Germany. On the other hand, the structure was characterized by high resolution x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) at Lehigh, infra-red (IR) and Raman spectroscopy at National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece, and extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) experiments at National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory. The most significant results of the project are briefly summarized