The effects of CaO/SrO substitution in bioactive glasses: a combined structural and dynamical study

Our research aims at the characterisation of the local structure and dynamics of the Sr-containing bioactive glasses by performing a series of neutron diffraction and spectroscopic experiments in the presence of a controlled SrO/CaO substitution. We have already performed the total neutron diffraction experiments and analysed them using the reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modelling to provide information about the local and intermediate order in terms of the distributions of the interatomic distances and coordination numbers. Neutron Compton scattering will be used to investigate the disorder-induced softening (with respect to crystalline precursor systems such as metal oxide crystals) of the effective force constants. The observed degree of softening of NCS observables will be correlated with the short-range order, defined by the average coordination number and the interatomic distances.