Martin Richard A, Salmon Philip S, Fischer Henry E, Cuello Gabriel J
Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev Lett. 2003 May 9;90(18):185501. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.185501. Epub 2003 May 6.
The relative distribution of rare-earth ions R3+ (Dy3+ or Ho3+) in the phosphate glass RAl(0.30)P(3.05)O(9.62) was measured by employing the method of isomorphic substitution in neutron diffraction. It is found that 7.9(7) R-R nearest neighbors reside at 5.62(6) A in a network made from interlinked PO4 tetrahedra. Provided that the role of Al is explicitly considered, a self-consistent account of the local matrix atom correlations can be developed in which there are 1.68(9) bridging and 2.32(9) terminal oxygen atoms per phosphorus.
