Eur. Phys. J. E (2012) 35: 8
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2012-12008-y

Regular Article

Structure property correlation in lithium borophosphate glasses

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Sinagpore, 117574, Singapore, Singapore

^* e-mail: mseasn@nus.edu.sg

Received: 29 March 2011
Revised: 25 June 2011
Accepted: 11 January 2012
Published online: 31 January 2012

Abstract

To investigate the influence of cation mobility variation due to the mixed glass former effect, 0.45Li₂O-(0.55 − x) P₂O₅−x B₂O₃ glasses (0 ≤; x ≤ 0.55) are studied keeping the molar ratio of Li₂O/(P₂O₅ + B₂O₃) constant. Addition of B₂O₃ into lithium phosphate glasses increases the glass transition temperature (T _g) and number density, decreases the molar volume, and generally renders the glasses more fragile. The glass system has been characterised experimentally by XRD, XPS and impedance studies and studied computationally by constant volume molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and bond valence (BV) method to identify the structural variation with increasing the B₂O₃ content, its consequence for Li⁺ ion mobility, as well as the distribution of bridging and non-bridging oxygen atoms. These studies indicate the increase of P-O-B bonds (up to Y = [B₂O₃]/([B₂O₃] + [P₂O₅]) ≈ 0.5 and B-O-B bonds, as well as the decrease of P-O-P bonds and non-bridging oxygens (NBOs) with rising B₂O₃ content. The system with Y ≈ 0.5 exhibits maximum ionic conductivity, 1.0 × 10⁻⁷ S cm⁻¹, with activation energy 0.63 V. Findings are rationalised by a model of structure evolution with varying B₂O₃ content Y and an empirical model quantifying the effect of the various structural building blocks on the ionic conductivity in this mixed glass former system.