A review is presented of recent neutron diffraction studies of silicate and borate glasses, using a combination of steady-state reactor and pulsed neutron sources. The samples studied include both single component glasses and binary systems, consisting of a network modifier plus a network former, and the data have been extended to high magnitudes of the scattering vector, Q, to achieve high real-space resolution. Peak fitting techniques are employed to extract the detailed geometry of the basic structural units and to investigate the distortions caused by the introduction of network modifiers. The data are compared to various structural models and conclusions are drawn not only with regard to the validity of the structural models themselves but also concerning the environment of the network modifying cations.

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