Analysis of Chemical and Phase Transformations during the Synthesis of Glass Ceramics Based on Bismuth Barium Borate Glass and Er:YAG

Abstract

An original combination of thermal activation with exposure to a strong nonuniform electric field transforms a multicomponent solution to a precursor. The transformation of an aerosol into a finished mixture eliminates the stages of gel formation, long-term gel drying, and subsequent contaminating milling, while providing the molecular level of components mixing inherent in the sol–gel method. The phase, chemical, and other thermal manifestations in the bismuth barium borate part (0.2Bi₂O₃–0.6B₂O₃–0.2BaO) of the batch, the (Er_0.5Y_0.5)AG components batch, and the batch precursor, which initially combined all necessary components of glass ceramics, were studied by simultaneous thermal analysis (STA). The Gibbs energy minimization was used to determine the formation conditions of garnet and yttrium borate crystalline phases, identified by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) in glass ceramic samples formed from ultrafine batches at various temperatures.