Physical and elastic properties of TeO2-Gd2O3 glasses: Role of zinc oxide contents variation

Conventional melt-quenching method was used to produce some (70-x)TeO2-30Gd2O3-xZnO (x ranged from 0 to 20 mol%) glasses. As-quenched samples were characterized (at room temperature) using different analytical tools to determine the influence of various ZnO concentrations on their physical and elastic characteristics. The XRD patterns of the samples confirmed their glassy and amorphous nature with no sharp diffraction peaks and a broad hump around 2θ = 25–35°. Pulse-echo technique was used at 5 MHz to measure the longitudinal and shear ultrasound velocity in the glasses. Elastic moduli, Poisson ratio and micro-hardness of the glasses were evaluated. The observed modification in the physical and elastic properties of the glasses with the variation of ZnO contents was due to the change in free-packing volume, loss of rigidity and formation more non-bridging oxygen in the glass network structure. Our findings revealed that as ZnO content increased, the glass density decreased from 5.672 to 4.581 gm.cm−3, resulting a decrease in the ultrasonic velocities, elastic moduli, and Debye's temperature values. Furthermore, the fractal bond connectivity values of the proposed glasses were declined from 1.842 to 1.751 with the addition of ZnO into the host matrix. The influence of ZnO contents on physical and elastic features of the glasses are asserted to be beneficial for various functional applications in photonics and optoelectronics.