Glasses are a highly important class of industrial material.
Apart from their familiar uses in windows for buildings, cars, aircraft etc. Structural characterisation in non-crystalline materials is usually very difficult, but with synchrotron radiation it becomes straightforward. Small angle and wide angle X-ray scattering can be used to discern large scale structure, or detect the onset of crystallisation in the amorphous matrix in time and temperature resolved studies. The counter-ions present in an aluminosilicate glass are responsible for governing such properties as refractive index and chemical durability. Analysis can be carried out using this technique to define or identify the phases appearing on crystallisation, during phase transitions, or during some chemical process.