Abstract

Nucleation is of great interest to materials scientists, physicists, and chemists studying fundamental scientific aspects of this phenomenon, as well as engineers working to develop glass-ceramics. Fundamental research in this field is indispensable for understanding the nature of the glassy state and the development of new products such as nanostructured glass-ceramics. However, experimental results on nucleation in inorganic oxide (mostly silicate) glasses and their theoretical interpretation in the framework of various mathematical models are still the subjects of significant debate. Difficulties during the early studies of nucleation partly arose from restrictions in experimental tools employed to study micron-sized or larger crystals, which cannot be directly applied to study nuclei of critical sizes or medium-range order in the parent glass, which are on a length scale of a few nanometers. Advanced tools, e.g., transmission electron microscopy, anomalous small-angle X-ray scattering, small-angle neutron scattering, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, advanced optical spectroscopy, together with computational modelings provide critical insight into the complicated and rapidly changing environments in which nucleation happens. The new findings from these sophisticated techniques and modeling approaches helps us evaluate hypotheses, modify available models, and develop new nanostructured glass-ceramics. Therefore, this paper reviews state-of-the-art solutions in instrumental and modeling analyses to measure and ultimately control nucleation. We propose adopting these tools and future impactful research in this exciting and challenging open field.

摘要

研究这种现象的基础科学方面的材料科学家、物理学家和化学家以及致力于开发微晶玻璃的工程师对成核非常感兴趣。该领域的基础研究对于了解玻璃态的性质和开发纳米结构微晶玻璃等新产品必不可少。然而，无机氧化物（主要是硅酸盐）玻璃成核的实验结果及其在各种数学模型框架下的理论解释仍然是重要争论的主题。早期成核研究的困难部分是由于用于研究微米级或更大晶体的实验工具的限制，这些工具不能直接应用于研究母玻璃中临界尺寸或中等有序的核，它们的长度为几纳米。先进的工具，例如透射电子显微镜、反常小角 X 射线散射、小角中子散射、X 射线吸收光谱、拉曼光谱、核磁共振、高级光学光谱以及计算模型，提供了对发生成核的复杂且快速变化的环境。这些复杂技术和建模方法的新发现有助于我们评估假设、修改可用模型并开发新的纳米结构微晶玻璃。因此，本文回顾了仪器和建模分析中最先进的解决方案，以测量并最终控制成核。