Recently, A paper named "Quantification of the boron speciation in alkali borosilicate glasses by electron energy loss spectroscopy" is published in Scientific Reports (IF: 5.578). Mr. Shaodong Cheng is the first and Prof. Guang Yang is the communications writer.

Transmission electron microscopy and related analytical techniques have been widely used to study the microstructure of different materials. However, few research works have been performed in the field of glasses, possibly due to the electron-beam irradiation damage. In this paper, we have developed a method based on electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) data acquisition and analyses, which enables determination of the boron speciation in a series of ternary alkali borosilicate glasses with constant molar ratios. A script for the fast acquisition of EELS has beenm designed, from which the fraction of BO₄ tetrahedra can be obtained by fitting the experimental data with linear combinations of the reference spectra. The BO4 fractions (N₄) obtained by EELS are consistent with those from ¹¹B MAS NMR spectra, suggesting that EELS can be an alternative and convenient way to determine the N₄ fraction in glasses. In addition, the boron speciation of a CeO₂ doped potassium borosilicate glass has been analyzed by using the time-resolved EELS spectra. The results clearly demonstrate that the BO₄ to BO₃ transformation induced by the electron beam irradiation can be efficiently suppressed by doping CeO₂ to the borosilicate glasses.

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51202180) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China, and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry.

Link：www.nature.com/articles/srep17526