Structural studies are not always compulsory for glass materials, but they are highly important and often essential, depending on the application and purpose of the study.
Applications Where Structural Studies Are Compulsory:
Optical Glasses: In cases where transparency, refractive index, and other optical properties need to be tightly controlled, understanding the structure is critical.
Nuclear and Chemical Waste Glasses: Structural studies are crucial to ensure that waste materials are immobilized safely within the glass matrix.
Glasses for Electronics (e.g., display panels): Understanding how structure affects electrical properties and durability is essential.
Biomedical Glasses: For bioactive or biodegradable glasses, structural studies are necessary to ensure compatibility with biological tissues.
When Structural Studies May Not Be Compulsory:
Simple, bulk glasses for everyday applications (e.g., window panes or containers) may not always require detailed structural studies if the material has well-established compositions and processing techniques. In these cases, performance testing might suffice.
Whether or not to conduct structural studies depends on the complexity of the glass system and the specific performance requirements.
If you are working on any application based materials, then structural analysis is equally important as it will provide you info such as structure-property relationship etc.