Abstract
A study of La metaphosphate glass using a combination of neutron and X-ray diffraction has yielded reliable information on the La–O coordination and the spatial distribution of the La 3+ cations. Due to the real-space resolution of the neutron diffraction experiment, it was possible to observe two different P–O bond lengths in the PO 4 tetrahedron. The La–O coordination number of about 7 exceeds the number, 6, of terminal oxygen atoms available for the coordination of each of the La 3+ cations. This leads to a tendency for clustering of the LaO n polyhedra, which is also observed in complementary reverse Monte Carlo results. The first feature visible in the X-ray structure factor at a scattering vector magnitude, Q, of 12 nm −1, is related to a La–La peak in real space at about 640 pm. This corresponds to La–La neighbours which are separated by a PO 4 unit.
Published Version
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