Particle size monitoring of BaCl2 nanocrystals in fluorozirconate glasses

Thermal processing of fluorochlorozirconate glasses leads to the formation of BaCl2 nanocrystals within the glass matrix. An alternative method to determine the size of the nanocrystals is provided by a Rayleigh scattering model based analysis of optical transmittance data. For comparison, the size is extracted from X-ray diffraction data with the Scherrer equation. Additional unwanted inclusions of non-crystalline scattering centers lead to significant differences between the results obtained from both of these techniques. Using these two methods allows for a controlled monitoring of nanocrystal growth in optical materials.