Investigation of the relationships between acoustic attenuation and ionic conduction of metaphosphate glasses

• Ionic conductivity and acoustic attenuation were studied in metaphosphate glasses.
• Two activation energies were found in the T dependence of acoustic attenuation.
• The two processes are thought to be related to different glass-network arrangements.
• The Ea of the attenuation increases with the field strength of the alkaline-earth.
• Activation energy of the attenuation and ionic conduction show similar behaviour.

This paper deals with phosphate-based glasses and summarizes the results obtained from acoustic attenuation and ionic conduction investigations. Several relaxation processes have been found to be connected with different activation energies, for which Double Power Law and Gaussian functions have been used for their modelling. The activation energy of the acoustic relaxations in the metaphosphate glasses increases with the increasing cationic potential of the modifier elements, following a direct relationship between the cationic potential of the modifier in the glasses and their influence on the short and medium range structural arrangements of the PO4 tetrahedra. On the other hand, the variation of the activation energy for the ionic conduction shows a similar trend than those observed in the acoustic attenuation processes, which indicates that both phenomena are closely influenced by the short and medium range structure of the glasses, particularly through the strength of the modifier-oxygen bonds and the glass network reticulation.