Anomalous light scattering in nanostructured glasses formed by simultaneous nucleation and diffusion-limited growth of particles: Modelling

Experimental light scattering by nanostructured glasses (phase-separated glasses, glass-ceramics) often qualita-tively differs from Rayleigh scattering. To explain such behavior, we consider nanostructured glass formed to-wards the end of stage of active diffusional growth of simultaneously nucleated particles and simulate its structure and light scattering using a simple geometrical-probability model proposed earlier. Simulation carried out in the model demonstrates formation of a system of polydisperse particles with correlated arrangement whose scattering is not independent and exhibits strong interparticle interference if the wavelength of light is sufficiently long. The study is the first successful attempt to describe all effects observed experimentally in light scattering by nanostructured glasses formed as a result of binodal diffusion-limited phase transformation. The assumption was made that our system of polydisperse particles belongs to hyperuniform two-phase systems generated by a tessellation-based theoretical methodology.