Fabrication of Bi-free TiO2 nano-crystallized glass

Fabrication of Bi-free transparent TiO2 glass-ceramics was attained by substitution a mixture of alkaline earth oxide and ZnO for Bi2O3. It is suggested that ZnO, which can play a role of both intermediate and network modifier, is important for the substitution. Observed particle size of precipitated anatase in the glass-ceramics was several nanometers enough to possess high transparency. It was found that diffraction intensity of metastable anatase in XRD patterns of glass-ceramics increases with increasing ZnO-concentration with heat-treatment at Tg + 50 K. The obtained results show that substitution of Bi2O3 by thermodynamic approach is effective for glass materials as well as glass-ceramics.