| Liquids cooled at a sufficiently fast rate can become supercooled and later solidify in a process known as vitrification, or the glass transition. It is commonly believed that intermolecular bonds are responsible for the vitrification of glass-forming liquids. In particular, oxide glass-formers possess strong covalent bonds that connect different structures into networks of molecules. These structures can be modified with alkali oxides, in particular potassium oxide, which serve to increase or decrease the average number of structure-connecting bonds in the liquid. Previous studies have indicated that average number of structure-connecting bonds is related to the temperature-dependent viscoelastic properties of glass-forming liquids. I report here the results of a study in which we used photon correlation spectroscopy to determine if the average number of structure-connecting bonds is related to the temperature-dependent viscoelastic properties of potassium borate glass. |
