XAS study of lanthanum coordination environments in glasses of the system K₂OSiO₂La₂O₃

The La L₁ and L₃ XANES and L₃ EXAFS have been investigated for the series of glasses 10K₂O50SiO₂x La₂O₃ (x = 1, 5, 10) and (10 - x)K₂O40SiO₂-(x/3)La₂O₃ (x = 7.5, 5, 2.5) and model compounds La₂O₃, LaAlO₃, LaPO₄, La₂NiO₄, La₂CuO₄ and La(OH)₃. An edge resonance at ∼ 25 eV above the L₁ edge in the glass spectra is concentration-dependent, decreasing in intensity with increasing lanthanum concentration. The 2s → nd forbidden transition increases with La₂O₃ concentration, indicating a reduction in the 'average' site symmetry of the first coordination shell of La. Mapping _X(k) space, which is a new and promising technique, was employed to extract bond distance, coordination number and thermal parameters from the EXAFS. By this method, one calculates the complete _X(k) space a function of all physically reasonable values of the adjusted parameters in all possible combinations. The advantage in this method is the assurance of a global minimum. Bond lengths were comparable to those obtained by Fourier transforming the phase corrected EXAFS. The values are 2.42 Å (± 0.03 A ̊) for LaO. The coordination numbers (N ≤ 7 ± 1.5) were derived by mapping and comparison to the published structures for other La compounds. _X(k) mapping is compared with least-squares fitting the data, and the correlation between the Debye-Waller factor and coordination number is also discussed.