Estimation of the intrinsic heterogeneity of ionic glass-forming melts.

The supercooled ionic melt is considered as a kind of binary composite material with an intrinsic heterogeneity (liquid medium and denser packed clusters) dependent on temperature. The conductivities of phases are extracted from the high (liquid) and low (glass) temperature experimental data. Effective conductivity of such a composite has been estimated using the checkerboardlike model with the presence of heterogeneity on different length scales. Using this model the volume fraction of the denser inclusions from experimental data on Ca2K3(NO3)(5) and Zr-Ba-La-Al-Na-F compound glass formers has been estimated.