The porosity and pore-size distribution in the glass play an important role in glass corrosion; however, such information is difficult to be obtained non-destructively. Here we report the use of spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) under controlled humidity environments to determine those structural parameters in the alteration layers formed on international simple glass (ISG), a model nuclear waste glass, in aqueous corrosion conditions. The SE results show that the ISG sample corroded for nearly 4.5 years develops pores larger than 2 nm in diameter, while the alteration layers formed initially in less than 1 month do not have such large pores. The development of larger pores over a long period of corrosion time, while the overall thickness remains relatively constant, implies structural rearrangements of the silicate network occurring within the alteration layer, which could eventually affect the transport of reactants and products as well as the structural stability.

玻璃中的孔隙率和孔径分布在玻璃腐蚀中起着重要作用。然而，难以无损地获得这样的信息。在这里，我们报告了在受控湿度环境下使用光谱椭圆偏光法（SE）来确定在含水腐蚀条件下在国际简单玻璃（ISG）（一种模型核废玻璃）上形成的蚀变层中的那些结构参数。SE结果表明，腐蚀了将近4.5年的ISG样品会形成直径大于2 nm的孔，而最初在不到1个月的时间内形成的蚀变层则没有这么大的孔。在长时间腐蚀后会形成较大的孔，而总厚度则保持相对恒定，