Abstract
Glasses with compositions xBi(2)O(3)-(100-x) B2O3 with 30 <= x <= 60 mol% have been prepared using the normal melt quenching technique. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy was used as a structural probe of the nearest-neighbor environment in the glass network. Assessment of the thermal stability of these glasses was achieved in terms of various simple quantitative methods based on the characteristic temperatures, such as the glass transition temperature, T-g, the onset temperature of crystallization, T-in, the temperature corresponding to the maximum crystallization rate, T-p, and the melting temperature, T-m. In this case, k(gl) may be more suitable for estimating the glass thermal stability in the above composition range. In this work the kinetic parameter K-r (T) is added to the stability criteria. The thermal stability of the glasses that were studied has been correlated with the activation energy of crystallization by this kinetic criterion and compared with those evaluated by other criteria. The results of both the criteria and the kinetic parameter K-r (T) confirm that the thermal stability decreases with increasing Bi2O3 content. The former parameters, besides the average force constant of the BO3 structural unit, were characterized and discussed in terms of the changes in the glass structure.