Determination of diffusion activation energy from self-similarity of concentration profiles in glasses

•Self-similarity is verified using the samples treated under different temperatures.•Activation energy is determined directly in procedure of self-similarity verifying.•Combined technique allows reducing twice the required amount of examined samples.

Technique for analysis of diffusion processes, where temperature dependence of the diffusivity is assumed to obey the Arrhenius law, is developed. It is shown that in this case verification of self-similarity of concentration profiles in glasses can be performed by comparison of refractive index profiles resulted from diffusion under different temperatures. The proposed technique enables evaluating the diffusion activation energy directly in the procedure of self-similarity verification. This technique requires twice less number of analyzed samples treated under different time–temperature conditions in comparison to traditional techniques.