PREPARATION OF NEW GLASSES WITH HIGH IONIC CONDUCTIVITIES

Glasses have long been known commonly as electric "insulators". Recently, however, the ionic conductivities are shown to be higher in glasses than in the corresponding crystals. This is probably due to the fact that the glasses are made through quenching the melts and thus the glasses maintain to some extent the structure and properties of the melts. In the context mentioned above, we propose several principles to search for and develop new glasses with high ionic conductivities; incorporation into glasses of compounds which exhibit (a) high conductivity in the melts and (b) a small conductivity difference at the freezing point (melting point) of the compounds. The glasses containing compounds fulfilling these two conditions may have high ionic conductivities with condition (b) seeming to be most important, as well as the ionic radius and the electronic configuration of the mobile ions.