Читать книгу Encyclopedia of Glass Science, Technology, History, and Culture - Группа авторов - Страница 203

In this chapter I have by no means covered all the possible methods that can be used to investigate the structure of glasses. In addition to variations in many of the specific techniques covered in this chapter, many more techniques including imaging methods such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) can be used (Chapter 2.3). Whereas the ability to “solve” the structure as done in crystal‐structure analysis is not possible, our ability to probe the structure of glasses has greatly improved since the first studies in the early decades of the twentieth century. Progress in X‐ray and neutron sources, lasers, detector sensitivity and resolution, and computers have all contributed to improve greatly the resolution and length scales observable in glasses and other amorphous materials.

Unlike for crystalline materials, however, any structural study of a glass must involve a multi‐technique approach since no single method can supply information on all aspects of the structure. In addition, it is advantageous to use numerical techniques such as simulations of spectra, first‐principles molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) calculations to aid interpretation of the experimental data. While our understanding of the SRO continues to improve, that of the IRO and LRO remains murky, as is the link between structure and, physical properties and behavior, as well as, structural changes that occur with increasing pressure and temperature. With continued advances in experimental instrumentation and computational methodologies, the outlook for resolving many of these structural issues is good.