Short- and medium-range structural order around cations in glasses: a multidisciplinary approach

The structural environment of cations at a short- and medium-range scale may be investigated either by spectroscopic methods or by radiation diffraction giving either a description of the geometry and symmetry of the cationic site, including the nature of the chemical bond, or a chemically resolved radial distribution function. Cations exhibit several original structural properties in oxide glasses. Short-range order is characterized by unusual coordination numbers, such as five-coordinated sites or tetrahedral sites which are in a network forming position, with the relative proportion of these sites depending on glass composition. Oxide glasses can also exhibit elements with unusual oxidation states, such as pentavalent uranium. The determination of the sites occupied by the elements in their different oxidation states allows to rationalize the chemical dependence of redox equilibria, which is the way to predict Fe behavior in magmatic silicate systems. Several experimental data lend support that cations are located in domains extending up to more than 8 Angstrom radius, in which cationic polyhedra may be linked together either by edges or by corners. In low alkali borate glasses, transition elements such as Co, Ni, Zn exist in peculiar highly ordered domains corresponding to the presence of rigid borate units. Strong differences are observed between modifying and charge compensating cations, either concerning site geometry or medium-range organization. The use of numerical models for experimental data inversion allows to rationalize the structural behavior of the various glass components. (C) 2001 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.