On the Boroxol Ring Fraction in Melt-Quenched B$_2$O$_3$ Glass

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Main Authors: Meher, Debendra, Avula, Nikhil V. S., Balasubramanian, Sundaram
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Meher, Debendra
Avula, Nikhil V. S.
Balasubramanian, Sundaram
author_facet Meher, Debendra
Avula, Nikhil V. S.
Balasubramanian, Sundaram
contents An atomistic structural model for melt-quenched B$_2$O$_3$ glass has eluded the simulation community so far. The difficulty lies in the abundance of the six-membered boroxol rings - an intermediate-range order motif suggested through Raman and NMR spectroscopy - which is challenging to obtain in atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Here, we report the development of a DFT-accurate machine-learned potential for B$_2$O$_3$ and employ quench rates as low as 10$^{9}$ K/s to obtain B$_2$O$_3$ glasses with more than 30% of boron atoms in boroxol rings. Also, we show that the pressure, and consequently the boroxol fraction, in the deep potential molecular dynamics (DPMD) simulations critically depends on the range of the geometry descriptor used in the embedding neural network, and at least a 9 $\unicode{x212B}$ range is required. The boroxol ring fraction increases with decreasing quench rate. Finally, amorphous B$_2$O$_3$ configurations display a minimum in energy at a boroxol fraction of 75%, intriguingly close to the experimental estimate in B$_2$O$_3$ glass.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_14526
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Boroxol Ring Fraction in Melt-Quenched B$_2$O$_3$ Glass
Meher, Debendra
Avula, Nikhil V. S.
Balasubramanian, Sundaram
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Materials Science
Chemical Physics
An atomistic structural model for melt-quenched B$_2$O$_3$ glass has eluded the simulation community so far. The difficulty lies in the abundance of the six-membered boroxol rings - an intermediate-range order motif suggested through Raman and NMR spectroscopy - which is challenging to obtain in atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Here, we report the development of a DFT-accurate machine-learned potential for B$_2$O$_3$ and employ quench rates as low as 10$^{9}$ K/s to obtain B$_2$O$_3$ glasses with more than 30% of boron atoms in boroxol rings. Also, we show that the pressure, and consequently the boroxol fraction, in the deep potential molecular dynamics (DPMD) simulations critically depends on the range of the geometry descriptor used in the embedding neural network, and at least a 9 $\unicode{x212B}$ range is required. The boroxol ring fraction increases with decreasing quench rate. Finally, amorphous B$_2$O$_3$ configurations display a minimum in energy at a boroxol fraction of 75%, intriguingly close to the experimental estimate in B$_2$O$_3$ glass.
title On the Boroxol Ring Fraction in Melt-Quenched B$_2$O$_3$ Glass
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Materials Science
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14526