Depolarized Components of Light Scattered by Glasses. II. Influence of Nonannealable Strains on the Scattering

Light scattering measurements on twelve optical glasses revealed that most have depolarization ratios ρh=1 within experimental error. A theory postulating the existence of a type of nonannealable strain in glasses, proposed by Mueller to account for some observations giving ρh less than one, is recast in a form enabling an estimate of the magnitude of the effect to be made. It is found that in most cases the effect predicted is within present experimental error. If, however, an appreciable part of the glass consisted of domains of some of the crystalline forms of silica, ρh could be reduced significantly below one by this type of strain. The fact that ρh is unity in vitreous silica is an argument against the existence of such domains.