Structural study of antimony borate glass system doped with transition metal ions using infrared and raman spectroscopy

Abstract

A series of Antimony Borate glass samples were investigated to determine the structural feature. The glass samples from the series of xSb 2O 3:(1-x)B 2O 3 with composition of 20≤:x≤:60 mol% and 0.6 Sb 2O 3:0.4B 2O 3:y with y is 0.01 mol% of Nb 2O 5, CuO, ZnO system have been prepared using melt-quenching technique. The structural properties of Sb 2O 3 host and the introduction of dopants onto the host sample has been investigated using Infrared and RAMAN Spectroscopy. The result of IR and Raman Spectroscopy revealed that the network structure of the studied glasses is mainly based on BO 3 and BO 4 units placed in different structural groups, the BO 3 units being dominant. IR spectra obtained shows conversion of BO 3 to BO 4 units upon the introduction of Sb 2O 3 commonly known as boron anomaly effect. The glass network can be modified with the presence of Sb 2O 3 and activator ions. The significant behavior in Raman Spectra indicates the presence of boroxol groups consisting of pure BO 3 groups and mixed BO 3-BO 4 structural units. This study shows that the vibrational spectroscopy (Infrared and Raman) provide useful method, and inter-complementary information about the structural properties of antimony modified borate glasses.