Glassy materials with specific functions
are almost universally
used in our daily life. If prepared via quenching, that is, by rapid
cooling of the molten glass, a frozen liquid with a high degree of
lattice disorder and stress is obtained. The release of stress through
mechanical action may significantly affect the microstructure and
dynamic features of the so-obtained nanoglass. Considering ion conducting
glasses, it has recently been shown that mechanical treatment of glasses
causes the long-range ion transport to significantly decrease. The
origin of this astonishing behavior of nanoglasses is, however, far
from being understood completely. Here, we show that depending on
the duration of mechanical impact in a high-energy planetary ball
mill, the petalite glass, LiAlSi4O10, passes
through a state with two Li reservoirs distinctly differing in electrical
relaxation and, thus, in ion transport. The two species, characterized
by electrical relaxation rates differing by two orders of magnitude,
show up clearly if we use the electric modulus representation to analyze
the data. This feature is also seen in conductivity spectra revealing
a two-step increase of the conductivity with frequency. Accordingly,
we propose a two-phase model with nanometer-sized non-relaxed glassy
particles next to or surrounded by structurally relaxed regions.