Nanostructural ordering in phase-separated soda-lime-silica glass

Phase-separated glasses are promising candidates to achieve distinct mechanical and optical properties. However, experimental studies of particle arrangements within phase-separated glass microstructures are rare. This study addresses this gap by providing detailed experimental data and a comprehensive analysis of nearest neighbor correlations between particle traces in a phase-separated glass. Our analysis encompasses various particle volume fractions and microstructure morphologies within a single glass composition. The derived correlations reveal that liquid phase separation in soda-lime-silica glasses is a non-random process with particles exhibiting more ordered and distanced spatial arrangements than expected from a random Poisson distribution. This observation indicates the inhibiting effect of diffusion fields between particles, which gain prominence with increasing particle fraction. However, we also identified a threshold around 5 % particle fraction below which this effect lacks the strength to significantly deviate the microstructure from a Poisson distribution. Despite significant morphological changes during coarsening, the particle ordering stays remarkably constant over time.