Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The development of monodisperse crystalline particles in cordierite glass doped with Cr3+ after a two-step heat treatment is elucidated by a combination of time-resolved small and wide angle x-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) experiments with electron microscopy. The effects of bulk and surface crystallization can clearly be distinguished, and the crystallization kinetics of the bulk phase is characterized. The internal pressure due to structural differences between the crystalline and amorphous phase is measured but the physical cause of this pressure can not unambiguously be attributed. The combined measurements comprise a nearly full characterization of the crystallization processes and the resulting sample morphology.