Elastic constants and structure of the vitreous system Co3O4P2O5

The elastic moduli of the entire vitreous range of the system CoPO that can be prepared by melting together Co₃O₄ and P₂O₅ oxides in open crucibles, have been measured by ultrasonic techniques at 15 MHz. The bulk, shear, longitudinal and Young's moduli and the Poisson ratio are found to be rather sensitive to the glass composition. It is found from this ultrasonic data, that the glass system can be divided into “three compositional regions”. This behaviour is qualitatively interpreted in terms of the cobalt co-ordination, crosslink densities, interatomic force constants and atomic ring sizes. Also presented is a full discussion of effects of annealing on elastic properties.