The crystallization characteristics of the glasses basedon stoichiometric composition of diopside (CaMgSi2O6)-lithium iron germanate(LiFeGe2O6) have been investigated. The effect of thecompositional variation of the two pyroxene members CaMgSi2O6-LiFeGe2O6on the thermal history of the glasses and type of the solid solution phasesformed as well as the resulting microstructure formed by crystallization aretraced by differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis and scanningelectron microscopy. In most cases intense uniform volume crystallization offine-grained microstructure are achieved by increasing the LiFeGe2O6 content at the expense ofCaMgSi2O6 in the glasses. Varieties of pyroxeness of the two components are mostly detected by XRD from the high CaO, MgO-containingglasses, however, both LiFeGe2O6 and diopside are crystallized in the highiron-GeO2-containing variety. The object of the present work was to understandthe role of the glass oxide constituents in determining the type of the solidsolution phases formed and the microstructure of the resulting material.
