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Total scattering studies of silica polymorphs: similarities in glass and disordered crystalline local structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

D. A. Keen  and
M. T. Dove
D. A. Keen*
Affiliation:
ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
M. T. Dove
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK
*
* E-mail: d.a.keen@rl.ac.uk
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Abstract

The structure of amorphous silica has frequently been compared with its crystalline counterparts in an attempt to understand the glass structure beyond short-range correlations. This paper presents results from neutron total scattering measurements of several polymorphs of silica and shows how these can be used to make a direct, quantitative comparison of amorphous and crystalline forms. It is found that the glass is similar to HP-tridymite and β-cristobalite, both dynamically-disordered crystalline phases of silica, but only out to distances ∼7.5 Å, beyond which the structures diverge. This is too small to validate a microcrystallite theory of glass structure. It is the average 180° Si–O–Si linkage in these two crystalline phases which gives them the flexibility for their instantaneous disordered structure to resemble the quenched (static) glass structure.

Keywords

total scatteringsilica polymorphsamorphous silicaglass
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , June 2000 , pp. 447 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2000

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