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Tailoring structure and properties of silica glass aided by computer simulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2016

Liping Huang*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
Fenglin Yuan
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
Michael Guerette
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
Qing Zhao
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
Siddharth Sundararaman
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: huangL5@rpi.edu

Abstract

By using a combination of experiments and molecular dynamics simulations, our studies show that the elastic response of silica glass to initial compression gradually changes from abnormal to normal with increasing quench pressure, helium content or alkali modifier added in the glass matrix. We uncovered the structural origin of the elastic anomaly in silica glass as localized structural transitions between motifs of different stiffness that are similar to those found in its crystalline counterparts. Pressure-quenching, helium-stuffing, or alkali-modifying plays a different role in changing the structure of silica glass, but all of the resulting structures reduce the propensity for such local structural transitions to take place, thus the degree of elastic anomaly. Our studies demonstrate that by processing in ways that gradually eliminates the elastic anomaly, the degree of silica glass to undergo irreversible densification can be eventually eradicated. This provides a solid foundation for the bottom-up design of new glasses with tunable structure and properties.

Information

Type
JMR Early Career Scholars in Materials Science Annual Issue
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2016
Figure 0

FIG. 1. (a) Elastic modulus (K) as a function to pressure (P) in abnormal, intermediate, and normal glass. (b) Elastic modulus (K) as a function to temperature (T) in abnormal, intermediate, and normal glass.

Figure 1

FIG. 2. Normalized volume versus pressure for silica glass and He-stuffed silica glass in our MD simulations compared with those from Weigel's experiments.32

Figure 2

FIG. 3. (a) Longitudinal frequency shift in pressure-quenched silica glass samples as a function of pressure from in-situ high pressure Brillouin light scattering experiments. (b) Longitudinal frequency shift in pressure-quenched silica glass samples during compression and decompression cycle from in-situ high pressure Brillouin light scattering experiments. Legend indicates the pressure at which the sample was quenched in experiments and pressure along the x-axis is what was applied during in-situ measurements in DAC at room temperature. Data for 0 GPa silica glass in (b) were taken from Sonneville et al.36

Figure 3

FIG. 4. (a) Bulk modulus in pressure-quenched silica glass samples as a function of pressure at 300 K from MD simulations. (b) Density of pressure-quenched silica glass samples during compression and decompression cycle at 1000 K from MD simulations. Legend indicates the pressure at which the sample was quenched in MD simulations and pressure along the x-axis is what was applied during compression at room temperature.

Figure 4

FIG. 5. (a) Bulk modulus in He-stuffed silica glass samples as a function of pressure at 300 K from MD simulations. (b) Density of He-stuffed silica glass samples during compression and decompression cycle at 1000 K from MD simulations. Legend indicates the amount of He stuffed into 1 mol of silica glass in MD simulations.

Figure 5

FIG. 6. Relative probability distribution of the O–O variance in α-rings (peak around 1.9 Å) and β-rings (peak around 0.1 Å) in α- and β-cristobalite at 300 K.

Figure 6

FIG. 7. (a) Alpha-ring fraction (red line with circles) and density (blue line with squares) of simulated cristobalite silica through the α- to β-cristobalite transformation under pressure. (b) Bulk modulus (red line with circles) and density (blue line with squares) of simulated cristobalite silica through the α- to β-cristobalite transformation under pressure. Insets show the comparison of the geometries of a 6-membered ring in α- and β-cristobalite. To the left of the discontinuity, β-cristobalite, which has a lower density but higher modulus, is stable, and to the right α-cristobalite, which has a higher density and lower modulus, is stable.

Figure 7

FIG. 8. Alpha-ring fraction (red circles) and bulk modulus (blue squares) of silica glass as a function of pressure from MD simulations. Insets show the comparison of the geometries of a 6-membered α- and β-ring. Upon initial compression, β-rings, of higher symmetry, lower density, and high modulus convert into α-rings, of lower symmetry, higher density, and lower modulus, so the bulk modulus of silica glass decreases with pressure initially.

Figure 8

FIG. 9. (a) Alpha-ring fraction as a function of pressure in 0, 4, and 8 GPa pressure-quenched silica glass. (b) Alpha-ring fraction as a function of pressure in 0.0, 0.4, and 1.0 mol He-stuffed silica glass.

Figure 9

FIG. 10. (a) Bulk modulus in sodium silicate glass samples (0–40% mol Na2O) as a function of pressure from MD simulations. (b) Ring size distribution in SiO2, 20Na2O–80SiO2, and 30Na2O–70SiO2 glasses from MD simulations.

Figure 10

FIG. 11. (a) Density change as a function of temperature in 0 and 8 GPa pressure-quenched silica glass tested under a constant pressure of 10 GPa in MD simulations. (b) Density change as a function of pressure in 0.0 and 1.0 mol He-stuffed silica glass tested under a constant pressure of 10 GPa in MD simulations.