Correlation of Electronic Conduction with Structure of Iron Tellurite Glasses by High-Q Neutron Diffraction

The proposal aims to study the structural properties of series of iron tellurite glasses; xFe2O3-(100-x)TeO2 (x= 10, 15,20, 25 and 30 mol%) by high-Q neutron diffraction and correlate the glass short-range and medium range order with its electronic conductivity. Iron tellurite glasses are semiconducting and their conductivity increases significantly with an increase in Fe2O3 concentration. Conduction is due to the hopping mechanism in which an electron jumps from one iron site to another. Fourier transformation and Reverse Monte Carlo simulations on the neutron diffraction datasets will provide information on the Fe-Fe, Fe-Te, Fe-O, Te-Te and Te-O atomic pair correlations, bond lengths, speciation, bond-angle distributions and correlate the changes in glass structure with composition and electronic conductivity.