Raman spectroscopic investigations of the effect of the doping metal on the structure of binary tellurium-oxide glasses

Raman studies over the range 10 to 1000 cm⁻¹ have been performed on binary tellurium-oxide glasses (1-x)TeO₂-xMO (M = Pb,Zn or Mg) prepared using a conventional melt technique. The intensities and positions of Raman bands observed in the range above 250 cm⁻¹ were found to depend both on the compound oxide and on the amount of doping. Indeed, the ratio of the intensity of the band around 680 cm⁻¹ (assigned to vibrations of TeO₄ trigonal bipyramids) with respect to that of the component around 750 cm⁻¹ (related to stretching-vibrations in TeO₃₊₁, TeO₃ and MO groups) are affected in different ways for the glass-modifier MgO and for the intermediate glass-formers PbO and ZnO. Concurrently, an explicit dependence on the compound oxide and amount of doping was also observed on the maximum of the boson peak (BP) in the low-frequency region around 40 cm⁻¹. The structural correlation lengths in the glasses, calculated using the model described by Shuker and Gammon, were found to be about 0.50 nm (1-x)TeO₂-xMgO glasses and around 0.65 nm for (1-x)TeO₂-xMO (M = Pb or Zn) glasses. All these results are interpreted in terms of the effect of the metal oxide on the changes induced in the structural arrangements of ¹_χ[TeO₄-TeO₃] chains.