Structure of liquid and glassy ZnCl2

Anita Zeidler, Philip S. Salmon, Richard A. Martin, Takeshi Usuki, Philip E. Mason, Gabriel J. Cuello, Shinji Kohara, and Henry E. Fischer
Phys. Rev. B 82, 104208 – Published 23 September 2010

Abstract

The method of isotope substitution in neutron diffraction was used to measure the structure of liquid ZnCl2 at 332(5)°C and glassy ZnCl2 at 25(1)°C. The partial structure factors were obtained from the measured diffraction patterns by using the method of singular value decomposition and by using the reverse Monte Carlo procedure. The partial structure factors reproduce the diffraction patterns measured by high-energy x-ray diffraction once a correction for the resolution function of the neutron diffractometer has been made. The results show that the predominant structural motif in both phases is the corner sharing ZnCl4 tetrahedron and that there is a small number of edge-sharing configurations, these being more abundant in the liquid. The tetrahedra organize on an intermediate length scale to give a first sharp diffraction peak in the measured diffraction patterns at a scattering vector kFSDP1Å1 that is most prominent for the Zn-Zn correlations. The results support the notion that the relative fragility of tetrahedral glass forming MX2 liquids is related to the occurrence of edge-sharing units.

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  • Received 18 March 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.104208

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Anita Zeidler1, Philip S. Salmon1, Richard A. Martin1, Takeshi Usuki1,*, Philip E. Mason2, Gabriel J. Cuello3, Shinji Kohara4, and Henry E. Fischer3

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
  • 2Department of Food Science, Cornell University, Stocking Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
  • 3Institut Laue-Langevin, 6 rue Jules Horowitz, BP 156, F-38042 Grenoble Cédex 9, France
  • 4Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, 1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo, Hyogo 679-5198, Japan

  • *Present address: Department of Material and Biological Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Yamagata University, 1-4-12 Koshirakawa, Yamagata 990-8560, Japan.

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Issue

Vol. 82, Iss. 10 — 1 September 2010

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