ABSTRACT
Silicon oxides dominate the Si compounds since the Si-O bond is by far the strongest among other Si-containing bonds. Silica (SiO2) is known as a rock-forming mineral and has, therefore, been widely studied in geoscience. In addition to experimental studies which allowed to determine crystal structures of silica more precisely, theoretical studies were employed in attempts to generalize the structural relationships between the silica polymorphs. Vitreous silica is one of compositionally the simplest forms of glass, and has been subject of interest since early days of solid state physics. One of the very first theories of vitreous silica considered this phase to be an aggregate of small crystallites a few nanometers in size which are connected with each other in a random way. Aluminosilicates are the most abundant minerals in the Earth’s crust.
