Eur. Phys. J. B 76, 197-201 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00189-y

Structural properties of the range-II- and range-III order in amorphous-SiO₂ probed by electron paramagnetic resonance and Raman spectroscopy

¹ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche ed Astronomiche, Università di Palermo, Via Archirafi 36, 90123 Palermo, Italy
² ENEA C.R. Frascati, 00044 Frascati, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a gvaccaro@fisica.unipa.it

Received: 19 January 2010
Revised: 2 April 2010
Published online: 24 June 2010

Abstract

In the present work we report an experimental investigation by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy on the hyperfine structure of the E' point defect, probing the local arrangement of the network (range-II order), and by Raman spectroscopy on the D₁ and D₂ lines, probing mean features of the network (range-III order). Our studies, performed on a-SiO₂ samples thermally treated at 1000 °C in air for different time durations, show that changes of the hyperfine structure and of the D₁ and D₂ lines occur in a correlated way. These results give strong evidence that the range-II and range-III order properties are intimately related to each other and that these properties are determined by the history of the material.