An interpretation on the thermodynamic properties of liquid Pb–Te alloys

Abstract

AbstractThe bonding character of liquid lead telluride \text{PbTe} is thermodynamically investigated in detail. Its possibility as an ionic melt composed of cation {\text{Pb}}^{2+} and anion {\text{Te}}^{2-} is not acceptable, by comparing the ionization energy of \text{Pb} atom, electron affinity of \text{Te} atom and the ionic bonding energy due to the cation {\text{Pb}}^{2+} and anion {\text{Te}}^{2-} with the help of structural information. Solid lead telluride PbTe as a narrow band gap semiconductor might yield easily the overlapping of the tail of valence band and that of conduction one. And on melting, it becomes to an ill-conditioned metallic state, which concept is supported by the electrical behaviors of liquid Pb–Te alloys observed by the present authors. As structural information tells us about the partial remain of some sorts of covalent-type mono-dipole and poly-dipole of the molecule \text{PbTe}, all systems are thermodynamically explained in terms of a mixture of these molecules and cations {\text{Pb}}^{4+} and {\text{Te}}^{2+} and a small amount of the conduction electrons are set free from these elements based on the ternary solution model.