The aim of present study is to investigate the microstructure of iron – silicate and iron - borate oxide glasses. For that purpose two groups of samples were prepared, in the first one the glass former was silicate oxide and in the second one borate oxide. Their structure was investigated by the means of atomic force microscopy and the crystalline phases were identified by the means of X-ray diffraction analysis.

The research on microstructure of iron – silicate - lead and iron - borate - lead glasses was carried out by MacCrone et. al. [1, 2] who suggested that in the glass containing more than 10% mol Fe2O3, iron ions are not randomly distributed. The proposed model suggested that the majority of Fe ions is located in separate clusters which are well ordered and contain various number of the iron ions. The other model describing silicate - lead and borate - lead glass systems containing iron ions, was proposed by Mendiratta [3]. He found the existence of the α-Fe₂O₃ crystalline phase in glasses containing higher concentration of Fe ions (0.5 and 0.6 mol). Ardelean et. al. [4, 5] results for iron - lead - borate glass system showed an amorphous nature of these glasses and they suggested that iron ions do not form clusters but they are uniformly distributed in the glass matrix even at high Fe₂O₃ content. The three models are different and have divergent suggestions.

Our studies show that in a subset of samples not clusters but some nanostructures exist. Their size, shape, and quantity depends on the amount of Fe₂O₃ in the composition of samples and the glass former used. Glasses containing less than 19 %mol iron oxide are amorphous. Samples with more than 19 %mol of iron oxide exhibit some small maxima in XRD spectra which prove that some crystalline phases exist in these samples.

References

[1] Anderson R. A., MacCrone R. K.: J. Non-Crystalline Sol., 14 (1974) 112.

[2] Moon D. W., Aitken J. M., MacCrone R. K., Phys. Chem. Glasses, 16 (1975) 91.

[3] Mendiratta S.K.: Electrical Conduction Mechanism in Lead Borate and Lead Silicate Glasses Containing Fe Ions. Phys. Stat. Sol. 93 (1986), 293.

[4] Ardelean I., Burzo E., Pop I.: Magnetic properties of xFe₂O₃ (1-x)[PbO.3B₂O₃] glasses. Solid State Communications, Vol. 23, pp. 211-214, 1977.

[5] Burzo E., Ungur D., Ardelean I.: Magnetic properties of xFe₂O₃ (1-x)[B₂O₃. PbO] glasses. Solid State Communications, Vol. 50, No.12, pp. 1083-1085, 1984.  

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