Effects of ionic cross-linking on the non-exponentiality of the [formula omitted]-relaxation in metaphosphate glass melts as measured by dynamic light scattering

Abstract

Photon correlation spectroscopy was conducted on a series of metaphosphate glass melts to measure the liquid's dynamic structure factor near the glass transition and thereby characterize the degree of non-exponentiality in its time decay. Each metaphosphate consists of polymeric chains of [PO4]−1 monomers interspersed by a variety of modifying cations (Ag+, Ba2, Ca2+, Sr2+) which can potentially form inter-chain crosslinks via ionic bonding. Our results show that the non-exponentiality of the α-relaxation decreases monotonically with increasing field strength of the cation-oxygen bond.