Structural investigation on silver phosphate glasses embedded with nanoparticles

Structural investigations of CdI2 doped silver phosphate glass-nanocomposites in the system xCdI(2)-(1 - x)(yAg(2)O-(1 - y)P2O5) are presented in this paper. Although, X-ray diffraction patterns show amorphous nature of the compositions, electron microscopic studies show several nanocrystalline phases such as CdI2, beta-AgI, AgPO3 and Ag4P2O7 dispersed within the glass matrix. The presence of CdI2 nanoparticles in cluster form is dominant for the compositions in the limit of the glass forming domain. The particle size in polyphosphate compositions is higher than that of metaphosphate or ultraphosphate compositions. FTIR spectra of these compositions have been investigated. It has been observed that the presence of different nanocrystalline phases does not affect the basic glass network. Differential scanning calorimetric results show that the incorporation of CdI2 within the glassy matrix increases the glass transition temperature. It is observed that the structural characteristics of the CdI2 doped silver phosphate glasses are quite different from that of other divalent metal iodide doped glasses. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.