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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

High Pressure Single Crystal Diffraction at PX^2
Published on: January 16, 2017
Polyhedral units and network connectivity in calcium aluminosilicate glasses from high-energy X-Ray diffraction
1Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for Fundamental Materials Research, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48823, USA.
Abstract:
Structure factors for Ca (x/2)Al xSi 1-xO (2) glasses (x = 0,0.25,0. 5,0.67) extended to a wave vector of magnitude Q = 40 A (-1) have been obtained by high-energy x-ray diffraction. For the first time, it is possible to resolve the contributions of Si-O, Al-O, and Ca-O coordination polyhedra to the experimental atomic pair distribution functions. It has been found that the connectivity of Si/Al-O tetrahedral network decreases with increasing x due to the emerging of nonbridging oxygens located on Si-O tetrahedra. Calcium maintains a rather uniform coordination sphere for all values of x and so it plays a certain role in determining the glass structure.
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