1. Introduction
Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is an experimental technique to obtain information on some of the structural and dynamic phenomenon of a material and to identify the site symmetry around the transition metal (TM) ions in glasses. Glasses doped with TM ions have attracted a great deal of attention because of their potential applications in the development of new tunable solid-state lasers, solar energy converters. It has been well established [1-5] that alkali borate glasses can be used as solid electrolytes, in solid state batteries.
Electrical conductivity, EPR and optical studies were carried on double alkali (mixed alkali) borate glasses by several wsorkers [6-8]. However less work is carried out on glasses containing three alkali oxides [9].Therefore, in this paper we report the EPR and optical absorption studies on ternary alkali oxide glasses containing alkaline earth oxides (ZnO, MgO, SrO, and BaO) using Cu2+ and VO2+ as the spin probes. It is interesting to study the effect of the two paramagnetic probes (Cu2+ and VO2+) on the structural aspects of the glasses.
2. Experimental
The starting materials used in the present study were analytical grade lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), potassium carbonate (K2CO3), zinc oxide (ZnO), magnesium oxide (MgO), strontium oxide (SrO), barium oxide (BaO) and boric acid (H3BO3). These materials were weighed to get the required composition and grounded in a mortar with pestle for half an hour to obtain homogeneous mixtures.
The base glass compositions taken were 1) 10RO-10 Li2O-10Na2O-10K2O-59B2O3-1CuO and 2)10RO-10Li2O- 10Na2O-10K2O-58B2O3-2V2O5 (where R = Zn, Mg, Sr and Ba). Each batch was melted in a porcelain crucible in an electric furnace at 1173 K for about 30 minutes. The homogeneous melt was rapidly quenched on to a stainless steel plates maintained at temperature of 373 K. The glasses were annealed for 24 hours at 373 K to relieve the mechanical stresses. For all the glass samples X-ray diffractograms (XRD) were recorded. The featureless, peak free XRD spectra revealed the glassy nature of the samples prepared. Table 1 presents the different glass compositions prepared for the present investigation.
EPR spectra were recorded on dry and perfectly powdered glass samples at room temperature (310 K) using EPR spectrometer (JEOL FEIX) operating at X-band frequency (9.205 GHz) with a modulation frequency of 100 kHz. Uncertainty in the measurement of “g” and “A” were about ±0.002 and ±2 × 10–4 cm–1 respectively.
The optical absorption spectra of the glasses containing copper were recorded at room temperature (310 K) using UV-VIS spectrophotometer (Shimadzu) in the wavelength region 300 nm to 1100 nm. The uncertainty in the measurement was about ±1 nm. However no optical absorption spectra were observed for the vanadyl glasses.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. EPR Spectra of Cu2+ Ions
The EPR spectra of Cu2+ in 10RO-10Li2O-10Na2O-10 K2O-59B2O3-1CuO are shown in Figure 1. The Cu2+ ion, with effective spin S = 1/2, has a nuclear spin I = 3/2 for both 63Cu (natural abundance 69%) and 65Cu (natural abundance 31%). Hence, (2I + 1) i.e. four parallel and four perpendicular hyperfine (hf) components were expected. In the present work, three weak parallel components were observed in the lower field region and fourth parallel component was overlapped with the perpendicular component. The perpendicular components in the high field region were not resolved. It was found that high field side of the spectra was more intense than the low field side. The EPR spectra of all the glass samples containing Cu2+ ions is similar to those reported for Cu2+ ions in other glass systems [7,10-15]. An axial spinHamiltonian was employed in the analysis of EPR spectra [16,17] which is given as
(1)
where z is the symmetry axis, b the Bohr magneton, S and I the electron and nuclear spin operators, HX, HY and HZ the static magnetic field components, g// and g^ the parallel and perpendicular components of “g” tensor

Figure 1. EPR spectra of Cu2+ ions in RO-Li2O-Na2O-K2OB2O3 glasses.

Table 1. Spin-Hamiltonian parameters, optical absorption bands and bonding parameters of Cu2+ ions in the glass systems.
while A// and A^ are parallel and perpendicular components of the hyperfine tensor A. The nuclear quadrupole contribution is neglected [18].
The solution to the spin-Hamiltonian gives the following expressions for the peak position related to the principal values of g and A tensors [19], for the parallel and perpendicular hyperfine peaks respectively.
(2)
and
(3)
Here m is the nuclear magnetic quantum number of the copper nucleus with the values +3/2, +1/2, –1/2 and –3/2 and n is the microwave frequency. The spin-Hamiltonian parameters have been evaluated and are presented in Table 1.
It was observed that, g// > g^> ge = 2.0023. From the “g” values and the shape of the EPR spectra it can be concluded that the ground state of Cu2+ ions is 
orbital (2B1g state), the Cu2+ ions being located in tetragonally distorted octahedral sites [20-24]. The high “g” values indicate the presence of a CuO6 chromophore [25, 26]. The line width of the parallel hyperfine components was found to increase with increasing values of the nuclear spin quantum number mI (Figure 1), which may be due to fluctuation in both the ligand fields and bond covalencies from one copper(II) complex to the next, giving rise to a narrow distribution in g [24,27]. It can be observed from Figure 2 that the variation of g// and A// for different ZnO, MgO, SrO and BaO composition is non linear. This may be due to change in the tetragonal distortion. Variation in g and A values may be associated with the change in the environment of Cu2+, i.e. in the ligand field strength at the site of Cu2+ which may be attributed to the structural changes in the glass. In the B2O3 glasses the addition of the network modifiers will lead to an increase in the coordination number of some portion of the boron atoms from 3 to 4. The resulting glass may be composed of both triangular and tetrahedral units which form a relatively open network with holes between the oxygen atoms of sufficient size to accommodate the alkali and alkaline earth ions [28]. As a doubly charged cation, R2+ is sufficiently strong to split the network. Therefore, sufficient non-bridging oxygen’s will be available for coordination in the broken network. The alkali oxides make available additional weakly bonded O2– for each R2+, i.e. R2+ captures the O2– from alkali oxide which happens at the expense of alkali oxide coordination. The solubility of the Cu2+ ions increases with the addition of the alkali and alkaline earth oxides presumably due to the coordination of the metal ion by the extra oxygen ions. Therefore incorporation of RO in the glass will influence the field at the site of Cu2+, which in turn may reflect in the non-linear variation of the spin Hamiltonian parameters as observed in the present case.
3.1.1. Optical Absorption Spectra
The optical absorption spectra of all the glasses containing Cu2+ ions resulted in a broad absorption band. The observed peak positions of the optical absorption spectra of the glasses are listed in Table 1. The observed broad band was assigned to the 2B1g à 2B2g transition of Cu2+ ions [12]. The variation of peak position of the optical absorption band with composition (ZnO, MgO, SrO and BaO) is shown in Figure 3. The variation is found to be non-linear. It is observed that SLNKBC glass has the lowest value of absorption peak wavelength, which may be due to increase in the ligand field strength around

Figure 2. Variation of g// and A// with RO composition.

Figure 3. Variation of optical absorption maximum (l) with RO composition.
Cu2+ ion. The optical absorption spectrum is influenced by the host structure into which the TM ions are incorporated. In oxide glasses, the TM ions mostly form coordination complexes with doubly charged oxygen as the ligands. However Cu2+, being as d9 ion, experiences a strong Jahn-Teller distortion, which leads to the splitting of energy levels [29,30] and causes predominantly an elongated octahedral coordination with four short inplane bond lengths and longer axial bond lengths. Accordingly three transitions, viz, 2B1g à 2A1g, 2B1gà 2B2g and 2B1g à 2Eg are expected. However only a single optical absorption maximum was observed in most of the cases [31,32]. Various authors [33-35,37] have placed the 2B1g à 2B2g and 2B1g à 2A1g transitions under the observed band while 2B1g à 2Eg transitions is considered to be hidden under the intense charge transfer absorption in the UV region. Most of the authors [33,35,38,39-44] assigned the observed optical peak to the 2B1g à 2B2g transition (DExy) and have used this value in the evaluation of the bond parameters. Therefore in the present case also the optical absorption band was assigned to 2B1g à 2B2g (DExy) transition.
3.1.2. Cu2+ Ligand Bond Nature
The EPR and optical absorption spectra data can be correlated to evaluate the bonding coefficients of Cu2+ [24, 34,35]. The bonding parameters were evaluated using the equations given below [24,33,44].
(4)
(5)
(6)
where P is the dipolar hyperfine coupling parameter (= 0.036 cm–1), DExy, DExz, yz are the heights of dxy, and dxz,yz
molecular orbital levels above the ground state 
respectively [33,38]. Here a2 describes the in-plane sbonding with copper
orbital, b2 describes the out-of-plane p-bonding with the
and
orbital and
is a measure of in-plane p-bonding with
orbital. The positions of optical peak indicate the value of DExy [34,35,39,41]. The corresponding value of DExz, yz was calculated using the approximate relation [40]
(7)
The calculated values (Table 1) of a2,
indicate moderate covalency for the in-plane sand pbonding respectively while the b2 value indicated that the out-ofplane p-bonding is slightly ionic in nature.
3.2. EPR Spectra of VO2+ Ions
The EPR Spectra of VO2+ ions in 10RO-10Li2O- 10Na2O-10K2O-58B2O3-2V2O5 are shown in Figure 4. The spectra have structures that are characteristic of hyperfine interactions arising from an unpaired electron with 51V nucleus, whose spin is 1/2 and present in 99.75% abundance. These spectra were analyzed by assuming [45-47] that vanadium is present as vanadyl ion in a ligand field of C4V symmetry. The EPR spectra were analyzed by using an axial spin-Hamiltonian (Equation (1)). The solutions of the spin-Hamiltonian [20], for parallel and perpendicular hyperfine lines are given respectively as:
(8)
(9)
where m is the magnetic quantum number of the vanadium nucleus having the values of ±7/2, ±5/2, ±3/2, ±1/2, H//(0) = (hn/g//b) and H^(0) = (hn/g^b). The spin-Hamiltonian parameters for various compositions were calculated using Equations (8) and (9) and are listed in Table 2. The paramagnetism of the vanadyl ion (V4+) arises from a single unpaired electron, as the crystalline fields quench the orbital angular momentum. The crystal fields of V4+ ions in glasses can be described either by threefold or fourfold symmetries [48]. The variation of g// and g^ depend critically on the local symmetry of this field. Although the V4+ ion usually in six-fold coordination in complexes containing vanadyl, its local symmetry is generally a distorted octahedron of oxygen ions.
An octahedral site with tetragonal compression would give values of g// < g^ < ge and A// > A^. In the present investigation, it is observed that of g// < g^ < ge and A// > A^. It is therefore concluded that V4+ in the present glass samples exist as VO2+ ions in octahedral coordination with tetragonal compression. The symmetry of vanadyl complex is C4V, and the ground state of 3d1 ion is dxy. The measure of tetragonality of the VO2+ site is given by Dg///Dg^ [Dg// = g// – ge and Dg^ = g^ – ge] values (Table 3). The glass (ZLNKBV) has high Dg///Dg^ value compared to other glasses (MLNKBV, SLNKBV, and BLNKBV). The high (Dg///Dg^) value for (ZLNKBV) glass indicates that the vanadyl ions in the glass (ZLNKBV) are more tetragonally distorted. The low value of Dg^ for the glass (ZLNKBV) also support that vanadyl ions in this glass

Table 2. Spin-Hamiltonian parameters of VO2+ ion the glass systems.

Figure 4. EPR spectra of VO2+ ions in RO-Li2O-Na2O-K2OB2O3 glasses.
are more tetragonally distorted. Figure 5 shows the variation of Dg///Dg^ with different compositions (ZnO, MgO, SrO, and BaO). The variation is non-linear which may due to change of ligand field at the transition metal (TM) ion site. For the glasses containing (MgO, SrO, BaO) the (Dg///Dg^) values decrease in the order (MgO, SrO, BaO) as shown in Table 3. The decrease in the values Dg///Dg^ suggests that the octahedral symmetry in these glasses is improved [49].
The Fermi contact interaction term K, the dipolar hyperfine coupling parameter P and the covalency rates (1 – a2) and (1 – n2) were calculated using the following equations [50].

Figure 5. Variation of Dg///Dg^ with RO composition.
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
The parameter
which is measure of out-of-plane p-bonding with the equitorial ligands is assumed to be unity for many oxide glasses [50]. (1 – a2) and (1 – n2) represent the covalency rates. (1 – n2) provides an estimate of covalency of the p-bonding between the V4+ ion and the vanadyl oxygen, while (1 – a2) gives an estimation of the s-bonding with the equitorial ligands. The covalency rates were estimated by taking the values of DE1 = 12500 cm–1 and DE1 = 16000 cm–1 [51]. The spin orbit coupling constant (l) is taken as 249 cm–1 [50-52]. The covalency rates (1 – a2) and (1 – n2) are given in Table 3. The values of (1 – a2) and (1 – n2) indicate a moderate covalency for s and p-bonds. These values indicate only the trends in the variation of magnitude of bonding parameters. The Equations (10) and (11) can be

Table 3. Tetragonality and covalency rates of V4+ ion.
rewritten as,
(14)
(15)
From the molecular orbital theory, it was observed [50] that the components A// and A^ consists of the contributions A// and A^ of the 3dxy electron to the hyperfine structure. P
K term arises due to the anomalous contribution of the s-electrons. The values of P, K,
and
were calculated and are given in Table 3.
The decrease of the anisotropic contribution
and
of the 3dxy electron to the hyperfine splitting for the glasses containing MgO, BaO and SrO is brought about by the increase of screening of the 3dxy orbital from its nucleus through the overlap of the electron orbits of the surrounding ligands of oxygen [49]. This is also supported by the decrease in the value of P, and increase in the value of K. The high values of K indicate a large contribution to the hyperfine constant by the “s” electron.
4. Conclusions
The EPR studies revealed that the Cu2+ ions are is present in all the glass systems investigated and they exist in tetragonally distorted octahedral sites with
(2B1g)
ground state. The spin-Hamiltonian parameters are influenced by the change in the glass composition. The bond parameter values indicated that in plane s and pbodings are moderately covalent. The out-of-plane pbonding is slightly ionic in nature.
In all the glass systems, the vanadium ions (V4+) exist as VO2+ ions in octahedral coordination with tetragonal compression and belong to C4V symmetry. The ground state of V4+ ion is dxy. The variation of Dg///Dg^ with different compositions (ZnO, MgO, SrO and BaO) is nonlinear which may be due to change of electric field at the transition metal (TM) ion site. The (1 – a2) and (1 – n2) values indicated moderate covalency for s and p-bonds respectively.