2002, Noll, Claudius, Habeck, Andreas, Brückner, Rolf

Glasses of the di- and metasilicate stoichiometric composition were melted, with lithium, sodium and potassium being replaced for each other. Additionally, SiO2 and B2O3 glass samples, the DGG standard glass, a float glass and a metaphosphate glass were examined. Molar mass, molar volume and oxygen partial volume were measured and found to increase in the sequence Li < Na < K. While potassium expands the glass network, the lithium ions show a counteracting behavior. The metaphosphate and the pure B2O3 glass are those with the most compact structure (related to one structure unit) and therefore with the lowest values of the studied properties. It was shown quantitatively that the polarizabilities of the nonbridging oxygen atoms are much higher than those of the bridging oxygen atoms. The influence of the cations was usually small. The origin of the small polarizability values of the B2O3 glass may be interpreted in terms of the lack of the nonbridging oxygen atoms and in terms of the denser structure of the oxygen polyhedra as compared with those in the SiO2 glass. The values of the stress-optical coefficients increase from lithium- to sodium- to potassium-dominated glasses, presumably resulting from increasing ion refraction of the nonbridging oxygen atoms. All preloaded samples of the di- and possibly also of the metasilicate composition showed an increase of the stress-optical coefficients with increasing preload at temperatures higher than the glass transformation temperature Tg. The reason is that a certain flow condition of the glass melts is frozen-in.