Understanding the structural origins of the photoelastic response in oxide glasses is important for discovering new families of zero-stress optic glasses and for developing a predictive physical model. In this Letter, we have investigated the composition dependence of the stress optic coefficient C of 32 sodium aluminosilicate glasses with different types of alkaline earth oxides (MgO, CaO, SrO, and BaO). We find that most of the composition dependence of the stress optic response can be captured by a linear regression model and that the individual contributions from the alkaline earths to C depend on the alkaline earth-oxygen bond metallicity. High bond metallicity is required to allow bonds to be distorted along both the bonding direction and perpendicular to it. These findings are valuable for understanding the photoelastic response of oxide glasses.
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