129 I and 119 Sn Mössbauer spectroscopy , reversibility window and nanoscale phase separation in binary Ge x Se 1 x glasses
The molecular structure of the prototypical chalcogenide glass system—GexSe1 x in the 0oxo3 range, has received much scrutiny over the years. These glasses have been probed by modulated DSC, Raman scattering, Sn absorption and I emission Mössbauer spectroscopy, and neutron scattering. The I measurements utilize Te parent as a dopant in glasses, and reveal a bimodal (A, B) distribution of sites, with the site intensity ratio, IB/IA (x), tracking changes in glass structure as a function of x. At low x (o0.15) Senchains are stochastically cross-linked by Ge additive, and IB/IA (x) sharply declines with x. But at x40:15, rigid regions nucleate at the expense of floppy ones, and the ratio IB/IA (x) reverses slope to display a global maximum in the 0:20oxo0:25 range. The latter coincides with the reversibility window usually taken as signature of self-organization of these networks. At x40:26, these glasses enter a stressed-rigid elastic phase and in the 0:31oxo1 3 range nanoscale phase separate into Se-rich and Ge-rich regions. The signature of the latter is saturation of IB/IA (x) at a high value of 1.5 at x 1⁄4 13. Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy measurements independently support the picture of broken chemical order of the stoichiometric glass inferred from the I Mössbauer experiments. These observations using local probes are well correlated to Raman scattering, modulated differential scanning calorimetric and diffraction measurements. r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 61.40.Fs; 63.50.+x; 78.30.Ly; 76.80.+y
Mössbauer Spectroscopy—A Rewarding Probe of Morphological Structure of Semiconducting Glasses
It has been fashionable to discuss the structure of stoichiometric melt-quenched network glasses in terms of chemically-ordered continuous random networks (CRN) since Zachariasen’s pioneering work on the subject nearly 50 years ago [1]. Glasses of the type AB2, such as SiO2and GeSe2in analogy to a-Ge, for example, have been described as random networks of geometrically well-defined A(B1/2)4 tetrahedral units.
Studies of amorphous GeSeTe alloys (I): Preparation and calorimetric observations
Abstract We have used differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to examine the thermally induced transformations of bulk and thin-film amorphous alloys within a large portion of the GeSeTe system. Most chalcogen-rich compositions showed a discontinuous increase of heat capacity when heated through the glass transition temperature T G . The Ge-rich compositions, which could only be prepared as sputtered amorphous films, were invariably characterized by an irreversible exothermic crystallization process on heating, beginning at the crystallization temperature T X . Values of T g and T X have been tabulated for all alloys investigated and the compositional dependence of T g has been examined in the light of recent models for viscous flow in glass-forming chalcogenide systems. In addition, a region of liquid immiscibility has been observed in the vicinity of Ge 20 Se 40 Te 40 in which a GeSe 2 -rich liquid phase segregates from a tellurium-rich liquid phase. The existence and limits of this immiscibility region have been rationalized on the basis of ionic perturbations to the covalent bonding. The segregation of a GeSe 2 -rich liquid increases the concentration of GeSe bonds which are the strongest and most ionic of the six angle-bond types which can occur in this system.