Neutron and X-ray diffraction study on the hydrous SiO2 glass under pressure

Abstract:

Water has significant effects on the physical properties and the structure of silicate melts. Studies on hydrous silicate melts are, therefore, important to understand the magma-related phenomena of the planetary interior. Neutron has an advantage over X-ray to study the structure of hydrous melts. We have developed the high-pressure neutron diffraction method on the amorphous silicates with water at the PLANTE beamline of MLF, J-PARC. Here we report the results of in-situ neutron diffraction experiments on the hydrous silica glass at room temperature up to 10 GPa as well as X-ray diffraction study. Hydrous silica glass was synthesized by quenching from liquid at 3 GPa, in which D₂O content is 13 wt.%. Neutron diffraction experiments were carried out at BL11 of MLF, J-PARC and X-ray studies were done at BL04B2 of SPring-8 and AR-NE5 of Photon Factory. On the neutron and X-ray spectra, the FSDP of hydrous glass locates at the higher Q-side than dry one, indicating the breakdown of network structure of silica glass by an addition of water. The FSDP shifts toward higher-Q side with increasing pressure parallel to that of dry silica glass. The radial distribution functions shows that the SiO₄ unit does not change up to 10 GPa but the Si-Si-distance decreases with pressure. These show that the intermediate range order, which consists of the network of SiO₄ tetrahedra, shrinks with increasing pressure. The changes of silica framework with pressure in hydrous silica glass are similar to those in dry silica glass. On the other hand, neutron diffraction shows the D-O distance in hydrous silica glass is nearly constant up to 10 GPa.