Investigation of the structural and thermal properties of aluminum-rich Ca–Al–Si–O–N glasses

In this paper, we investigate the structure and thermal properties of aluminum-rich transparent Ca–Al–Si–O–N glasses. The obtained glasses were prepared by a traditional melt-quenching technique at 1650 °C using AlN as the nitrogen source. The obtained glasses have a n_Al/n_Si>1 and contain up to 17 eq.% of N. The structure of the glasses was characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared, and Raman spectroscopy techniques. The structure analysis shows a higher preference for Si–N bond formation relative to Al–N bond formation and aluminum is predominately present in tetrahedral coordination as AlO₄ units. The thermal properties of samples were studied by differential thermal analysis and the obtained glass transition temperature ranges from 875 °C to 950 °C, and is primarily influenced by the N content. The glass stability can be correlated with both the N and Al contents in the studied glasses. It is improved due to the increased degree of network polymerization by the incorporation of nitrogen.