Relationship Between Density And Structure Of The Chalconitride Glasses

The structure of chalconitride glasses was assumed to be more compact than that of the base chalcogenide glasses since the threefold coordinated nitrogen introduced connects three tetrahedral or trinagular units in the network as previously discussed. The validity of this assumption was further supported by the observed densities of the chalconitride glasses in the present paper. Even though the much lighter elements Si and N were introduced into the chalcogenide glass, the density of the resulting chalconitride glasses increased when the content of nitride was low, indicating that the higher degree of atomic packing overweighed the partial negative effect of lighter atomic weight.