Computer simulation of molten silica and related glass forming fluids: recent progress

The structure and dynamics of glass forming fluids are accessible in atomistic detail through molecular dynamics simulation. Although for molten silica and its mixtures with oxides of sodium, lithium, aluminium etc only systems at rather high temperatures can be fully equilibrated, since only timescales less than 100 ns are accessible, valuable insight can be gained, including guidance for corresponding experiments. A survey of the state of the art of such simulations and an outlook on open problems will be given.