Effect of Ce, Sb and Sn on mechanism and activation energy for crystallisation of X‐ray irradiated photosensitive glass

This work aims to determine the effect of Ce, Sb, Sn and Ag on the mechanism and activation energy of crystallisation for an X‐ray irradiated photosensitive lithium silicate glass composition and to compare it with the one that contained only Ag. According to the obtained results, while the addition of Ce, Sb and Sn changed the crystallisation mechanism of lithium silicate crystal from two‐ to three‐dimensional growths, these additions did not affect the activation energy of crystallisation for lithium metasilicate. Differential thermal analysis was used for studying the mechanism and activation energy for crystallisation of these glasses through the Matusita and the modified Kissinger methods; SEM and XRD were used to investigate the lithium silicate and silver crystallisation in the glasses.