Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:39:26.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Nanostructures Of Amorphous Silicas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Linn W. Hobbs
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Xianglong Yuan
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
L. C. Qin
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 present address: Fundamental Research Laboratory, NEC Corporation, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan
Vinay Pulim
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139-4307
Alexander Coventry
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139-4307
Get access

Extract

Silicon dioxide is an important catalyst material, a mainstay insulator in microelectronics, and a widely distributed terrestrial and marine skeletal mineral. Geologically, it is found in one of a large number of polymorphic crystalline states, but can also be rendered “amorphous” by rapid cooling from the melt through a glass transition, depositing from a vapor or from solution (in radiolaria skeletons), oxidizing silicon, or irradiating with electrons, ions or neutrons. While the structures of the crystalline polymorphs are well documented, the structure of even the exhaustively studied vitreous silica remains largely enigmatic. Diffraction provides average information about short-range order—which appears to comprise [SiO4] tetrahedral units in all but a high-pressure crystalline polymorph—but is relatively insensitive to alternative medium-range arrangements of these structural units. One sensitive, but little understood, indicator is the position and shape of the first sharp diffraction peak (FSDP).

Type
Sir John Meurig Thomas Symposium: Microscopy and Microanalysis in the Chemical Sciences
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hobbs, L. W., Jesurum, C. E., Pulim, V. and Berger, B., Philos. Mag. A 78 (1998) 679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Hobbs, L. W., Esther Jesurum, C. and Berger, Bonnie, in: Structure and Imperfections in Amorphous and Crystalline Silica, ed. Duraud, J. P., Devine, R. A. B. and Dooryhee, E. (John Wiley & Sons, London, 2000).Google Scholar

3 Wright, A. F., Non-Cryst, J.. Solids 179 (1994) 84.Google Scholar

4 Elliott, S. R., Non-Cryst, J.. Solids 150 (1992) 112.Google Scholar

5 Hobbs, L. W., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 192&193 (1995) 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Hobbs, L. W., Jesurum, C. E. and Berger, B., in: Rigidity Theory and Applications, ed. Duxbury, P. M. and Thorpe, M. F. (Plenum Press, New York, 1999) p. 191.Google Scholar

7 Jesurum, C. E., Pulim, V. and Hobbs, L. W., Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B114 (1998) 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Hobbs, L. W., Jesurum, C. E., Coventry, A., Pulim, V., Schwartz, R. and Berger, B., in: Advanced Materials for the 21st Century: The Julia R. Weertman Symposium, ed. Chung, Y.-W., Dunand, D. C., Liaw, P. K. and Olson, G. B. (TMS, Warrendale, PA, 1999) p. 475.Google Scholar

9 Yuan, X. and Cormack, A. N., Ceram. Trans. 82 (1997) 281.Google Scholar

10. Qin, L. C. and Hobbs, L. W., Non-Cryst, J.. Solids 192&193 (1995) 456.Google Scholar

11. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Drs. Carol S. Marians, C. Esther Jesurum, A. J. Garratt-Reed and A. N. Sreeram and Prof. Bonnie Berger to the results presented here. This work was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, under grant DE-FG02-89ER45396.Google Scholar