Investigation of Structure of Glasses by Their Infrared Reflection Spectra

Infrared reflection spectra of a number of glasses are presented. It is apparent that in some cases such a method may be a useful tool in determining the atomic arrangement in glasses, especially when combined with quantitative measurements of the refractive index and extinction coefficient. The dispersion curves of barium‐containing silicate glasses show that the network of these glasses contains metals in at least two different types of coordination. One is obviously the silica tetrahedron and the other is probably a octahedrally coordinated barium. The latter is concluded by comparison with the reflection spectrum of benitoite. Reflection spectra of boric oxide glasses are presented. These indicate that pure boric oxide glass is not 100% triangularly coordinated and that the pure glass contains much more tetrahedral coordination than was previously concluded from X‐ray‐scattering data.