Structural study of Na2O-B2O3-SiO2-La2O3 glasses from molecular simulations using a polarizable force field

The properties of Na2O-B2O3-SiO2+La2O3 glasses (NBS_La) are not well understood. In particular the influence of the lanthanides on the polymerized network structure and organization are not well known. In this work, we use a Polarizable Ion Model (PIM) that was fitted on electronic structure calculations to simulate a series of NBS_La glasses using molecular dynamics. The simulations account well for the main structural characteristics of NBS_La glasses such as the structure factors and the ionic local environments despite minor discrepancies with experiments about the Si-O distance and the B coordination. In particular, we examine the impact of La2O3 addition to Na2O-B2O3-SiO2 glasses in term of structural changes and in the Na migration paths which become more homogeneous.