Polarisability And Polarising Power Of Rare Earth Ions In Glass: An Topical Basicity Assessment

Electronic polarisabilities of rare earth metal ions are obtained from refractivity data (densities and refractive indices) for their crystalline trifluorides in order to make viable an analysis of refractivity data for silicate, aluminosilicate and phosphate glasses containing rare earth oxides. These data provide for each glass a value of the electronic polarisability of the oxide atoms from which is calculated the optical basicity. In turn, this allows assignment of the basicity moderating parameter, y, to the rare earth ion present in the glass.