Raman spectra of soda–lime–silicate glass doped with rare earth

Soda–lime–silicate glasses doped with different rare earth oxides (La2O3, CeO2, Nd2O3, Gd2O3 and Y2O3) of 1 mol% content were prepared by the traditional melting–quenching methods. In order to reveal the effects of rare earth elements on the behavior of soda–lime–silicate glass the structures of soda–lime–silicate glasses doped with different rare earth oxides were determined using an INVIA confocal microRaman spectrometer equipped with a CCD detector, and viscosities of glass melts were measured using a rotating crucible viscometer; the melting temperature of the studied glasses was derived on the basis of the Arrhenius equation. Three expressions of the fraction of non-bridging oxygen (NBO/NBO+BO), average number of non-bridging oxygen (NBO) per tetrahedron (NBO/tetrahedron) and average number of bridging corners per tetrahedron (bridges/tetrahedron) for investigated soda–lime–silicate glasses were given, and the effect of rare earth dopants on the structure of soda–lime–silicate was characterized by the Raman shift, variation of the [SiO4] tetrahedron structural unit Qn (n=1,2,3,4), fraction of non-bridging oxygen and the average number of bridging corners per tetrahedron. The effect of doping rare earth oxides into glass on the viscosity and melting temperature was interpreted by changes in structure of soda–lime–silicate glasses doped with rare earth oxides.