Atomic-charge distribution in glasses by terahertz spectroscopy

It is demonstrated that the width of the uncorrelated atomic-charge distribution in glasses can be extracted from the frequency dependence of the coupling coefficient for the far-infrared absorption measured experimentally by the time-domain terahertz spectroscopy technique. This value for As2S3 glass is found to be 0.12 (e). A density functional theory-based tight-binding molecular dynamics model of As2S3 glass qualitatively supports these findings.