We investigate the quality of structural models generated by the Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) method in a typical application to amorphous systems. To this end we calculate surrogate diffraction data from a Li2O-SiO2 molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and use the total scattering function, in addition to minimal pair distances and coordination numbers of silicon (oxygen) to oxygen (silicon) ions, as input for the RMC modeling. Then we compare partial radial distribution functions, coordination numbers, bond angles, and ring sizes predicted by the RMC models with those of the MD system. It is found that partial distributions functions and properties on small lengths scales, as distributions of coordination numbers and bond angles, are well reproduced by the RMC modeling. Properties in the medium-range order regime are, however, not well captured, as is demonstrated by comparison of ring size distributions. Due care therefore has to be exercised when extracting structural features from RMC models in this medium-range order regime. In particular we show that the occurrence of such features can be a mere consequence of the chosen starting configuration.
A new theoretical approach is presented for relating structural information to transport properties in ion conducting network glasses. It relies on the consideration of the different types of glass forming units and the charges associated with them. Changes in the compositions of these units lead to a re-distribution of Coulomb traps for the mobile ions and to a subsequent change in long-range ionic mobilities. It is furthermore shown how measured changes of the unit compositions can be explained by thermodynamic modeling. The theories are tested against experiments on borophosphate glasses an…
Developing efficient, fast performing and thermally stable Silver iodide based fast ion conducting solids are of great interest for resistive switching applications, but still remain challenges. Metallization in bulk, behavior of threshold voltage profile over composition and corrosion reactions are few of these challenges. In this work, the switching behavior of bulk, fast ion conducting, vitreous (AgI)x-(Ag2O)25-(MoO3)75-x, for 60 < x < 40 solids, has been investigated, in order to understand the switching mechanism with theinert electrodes. By using inert electrodes, the switching becomes i…
A structural study is presented of ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations of Ge-As-Se calcogenide glasses performed at the same mean coordination number but differing stoichiometry ranging between Se rich and Se poor glasses. Starting configurations are generated via Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulations of Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) measurements of experimental samples. Structural analysis is presented illustrating the bonding trends found with changing stoichiometry.
The structure of Ge$_{22}$Ga$_3$Sb$_{10}$S$_{65}$ and Ge$_{15}$Ga$_{10}$Sb$_{10}$S$_{65}$ glasses was investigated by neutron diffraction (ND), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements at the Ge, Ga and Sb K-edges. Experimental data sets were fitted simultaneously in the framework of the reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulation technique. Short range order parameters were determined from the obtained large-scale configurations. It was found that the coordination numbers of Ge, Sb and S are around the values predicted by the Mott-rule (4, 3 and 2, r…
In this work, we observe the rigidity percolation phenomena in a fast ion conducting, conditional glass forming system (AgI)75-x-(Ag2O)25-(MoO3)x. To find out where, why and how the rigidity percolation phenomenon occurs within the range of 20 < x < 37.5, calorimetry and photoelectron spectroscopy experiments are performed. The temperature dependence of heat capacity (normalized) at glass transition temperature (Tg), exhibits fluctuations for samples with higher AgI concentration. This specific quality attributes to fragile glass. The wide range of composition accommodates both the fragile and…
Previously observed non-Arrhenius behavior in fast ion conducting glasses [\textit{Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett.}\ \textbf{76}, 70 (1996)] occurs at temperatures near the glass transition temperature, $T_{g}$, and is attributed to changes in the ion mobility due to ion trapping mechanisms that diminish the conductivity and result in a decreasing conductivity with increasing temperature. It is intuitive that disorder in glass will also result in a distribution of the activation energies (DAE) for ion conduction, which should increase the conductivity with increasing temperature, yet this has not been iden…
The structure of Ag-doped GeS3 glasses (0, 15, 20, 25 at.% Ag) was investigated by diffraction techniques and extended x-ray absorption fine structure measurements. Structural models were obtained by fitting the experimental datasets simultaneously by the reverse Monte Carlo simulation technique. It is observed that Ge has mostly S neighbours in GeS3, but Ge-Ge bonds appear already at 15% Ag content. Sulfur has ~2 S/Ge neighbours over the whole concentration range, while the S-Ag coordination number increases with increasing Ag content. Ag-Ag pairs can already be found at 15% Ag. The Ag-S mean…
Although experiments can offer some fingerprints of the atomic structure of glasses (coordination numbers, pair distribution function, etc.), atomistic simulations are often required to directly access the structure itself (i.e., the positions of the atoms). On the one hand, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can be used to generate by quenching a liquid - but MD simulations remain plagued by extremely high cooling rates. On the other hand, reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modeling bypasses the melt-quenching route - but RMC often yields non-unique glass structures. Here, we adopt the force-enhanced…
AC conductivity spectra of xAgI-(1-x)AgPO$_3$ fast ion conducting glasses spanning the flexible, intermediate (isostatically rigid) and stressed rigid phases are analyzed. The rescaled frequency dependent spectra are mapped into time-dependent mean square displacements out of which a typical lengthscale characterizing the spatial extent $\sqrt{\langle R^2(\infty)\rangle}$ of non-random diffusion paths is computed. The latter quantity is studied as a function of AgI composition, it is found to display a maximum in the intermediate phase, providing the first clear evidence of a typical lengthsca…
A major challenge in the modeling of ionically conducting glasses is to understand how the large variety of possible chemical compositions and specific structural properties influence ionic transport quantities. Here we revisit and extend a theoretical approach for alkali borophosphate glasses, where changes of conductivity activation energies with the borate to phosphate mixing ratio are related to modifications of the ionic site energy landscape. The landscape modifications are caused by varying amounts of different units forming the glassy network, which lead to spatial redistributions of t…
Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy and Raman studies are performed on fast ion conducting, AgI-Ag2O-MoO3 glasses, over a wide range of composition to understand the features of structure, ion migration and their correlation. These features essentially involve diffusion and relaxation. The coefficients associated with diffusion process, especially, the diffusion coefficient, diffusion length and relaxation time has been determined by applying Nguyen-Breitkopf method. Besides, by tuning the concentration of the constituents, it is possible to obtain samples those exhibit two important struct…
We propose here a method to generate random networked amorphous structure using only readily available short-range properties like bond lengths, bond angles and connectivity of the constituents. This method is a variant of Monte-Carlo (MC) method wherein the basic constituents of an amorphous network i.e. rigid polyhedral units are connected randomly obeying certain steric constraints. The algorithm is designed to reproduce the medium-range order universally observed in glasses. The method somewhat resembles the reverse MC (RMC) method where a random move of an atom inside a box is accepted or…
Chemical short range order and topology of Ge$_{x}$Ga$_{x}$Te$_{100-2x}$ glasses was investigated by neutron- and x-ray diffraction as well as Ge and Ga K-edge extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements. Large scale structural models were obtained by fitting experimental datasets simultaneously with the reverse Monte Carlo simulation technique. Models, relying only on experimental data and basic physical information without constraining the average coordination numbers, give 3.9 - 4.1 for the number of the atoms in the first coordination sphere of Ge atoms, while the average…
The short range order in Ge$_{30}$Ga$_{5}$Sb$_{10}$Se$_{55}$ and Ge$_{21}$Ga$_{5}$Sb$_{10}$Se$_{64}$ glasses was investigated by X-ray (XRD) and neutron diffraction (ND) as well as extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements at the Ge, Ga, Sb and Se K-edges. Large scale structural models were obtained by fitting simultaneously the experimental data sets by reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulation technique. It was found that Ge, Sb and Se atoms follow the Mott-rule and have 4, 3 and 2 nearest neighbors, respectively. The average coordination number of the Ga atoms was around 4. T…
We elaborate on a general method that we recently introduced for characterizing the "natural" structures in complex physical systems via a multiscale network based approach for the data mining of such structures. The approach is based on "community detection" wherein interacting particles are partitioned into "an ideal gas" of optimally decoupled groups of particles. Specifically, we construct a set of network representations ("replicas") of the physical system based on interatomic potentials and apply a multiscale clustering ("multiresolution community detection") analysis using information-b…
