Glass formation and structure of glasses in B2O3―Bi2O3―MoO3 system

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to study the glass formation tendency in the ternary system B 2 O 3 ―Bi 2 O 3 ―MoO 3 and to define the main structural units building the amorphous network. A wide glass formation area was determined which is situated near the Bi 2 O 3 ―B 2 O 3 side. A liquid phase separation region was observed near the MoO 3 ―B 2 O 3 side for compositions containing below 25 mol% Bi 2 O 3 and their microheterogeneous structure was observed by SEM. The phase formation was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). By DTA was established the glass transition temperature (T g ) in the range of 380–420 °C and crystallization temperature (T x ) vary between 420 and 540 °C. The main building units forming the amorphous network are BO 3 (1270 and 1200 cm − 1 ), BO 4 (930–880, 1050–1040 cm − 1 ), MoO 4 (840–760 cm − 1 ) and BiO 6 (470 cm − 1 ). It was proved that Bi 2 O 3 favors the BO 3 → BO 4 transformations while MoO 3 preserves BO 3 units in the amorphous network.