Local atomic structure of the high refractive index La2O3–Nb2O5–B2O3 glasses

High refractive glasses in the La2O3–Nb2O5–B2O3 (LNB) system were synthesized by the melt-quenching technique and correlations between their compositions and structural features were clarified. It was found that the refraction index of the LNB glasses is tunable from 1.71 to 1.98 by the variation of the Nb2O5 fraction from 5 to 30 mol%. The infrared spectroscopy analysis implies on the presence of three and four coordinated borate units, as well as six coordinated niobium atoms. The X-ray absorption (La L3-edge and Nb K-edge XANES and EXAFS) spectroscopy and total X-ray scattering results show that niobium atoms maintain octahedral oxygen coordination despite the wide variation of the Nb2O5 content, while average lanthanum coordination number is versatile and changes from ~8 to ~10. The interatomic distance values testify that the niobium octahedra in the glass network are connected only “by corners”. The stability of niobium local atomic structure implies that the main source of the changes in the optical properties of studied glasses is the variation of the Nb2O5 content. The deeper understanding of the local atomic structure of the high refractive index LNB glasses paves ways for the development of new glass wafers for cutting-edge augmented reality devices.