Characterization of silica glasses sintered under Cl2 ambients

Chlorine incorporated into silica glasses by sintering porous soot rods under Cl2/He atmosphere or by fabricating with plasma methods were found to be mostly as ≡SiCl, which gives rise to an optical absorption tail above ≂7.5 eV. The cross section of the optical absorption at ≂7.77 eV (160 nm) was found to be 1.14×1020 cm2. This value was almost the same as that of ≡SiCl in SiCl4 molecule in the gas phase. A minor fraction (10−3∼10−1) was found to be present as Cl2 molecule, which gives the absorption band at 3.8 eV.