Investigating Alkali Borate Glasses via Total X-ray Scattering

The work offers the reader an introduction into the current state of research of (alkali) borate glasses. It gives a comprehensive theoretical background about X-ray scattering and polyatomic systems reagarding the structure factor and the partial distribution function, explains different approaches in sample preparation, experimental setups and evaluation procedures. The highly automated evaluation program PDFgetX3 is compared with its predecessor PDFgetX2 and described in detail relating to the measured ionic glass system. Eventually the results are compared and discussed.