Affiliation:
1. Vereshchagin Institute for High Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
2. LPCA, UMR 8101 CNRS, Universite du Littoral
3. St. Petersburg State University, Institute of Chemistry
Abstract
The volume and conductivity of nonstoichiometric chalcogenide glass g-As3Te2 have been investigated at high hydrostatic pressures (up to 8.5 GPa), and results have been compared with earlier data for stoichiometric chalcogenide glass g-As2Te3. Structural and Raman studies of g-As3Te2 glass have revealed a greater significance of As–As pair correlations in the range of medium-range order compared with “classic” chalcogenide glass g-As2Te3. Even at such a large excess of arsenic, a high concentration of “improper” Te–Te neighbors has been observed because of chemical disorder. Under normal conditions, the thermal gap (0.43–0.48 eV) and resistivity (104 Ω cm) of glass g-As3Te2 are greater than those of g-As2Te3. The elastic behavior of g-As3Te2 glass, as well as of g-As2Te3, under compression has been observed at pressures up to 1 GPa, the initial values of bulk moduli for these glasses being nearly coincident. Polyamorphic transformation in g-As3Te2 (with softening of relaxing bulk modulus) is more diffuse and extends to higher pressures (from 1.5 to 4.0 GPa). The metallization process in g-As3Te2 is also more diffuse: metallic conductivity is reached at pressures of 5.5–6.0 GPa. As in the case of the stoichiometric glass, the baric dependences of the bulk modulus exhibit a kink in the pressure range 4–5 GPa. Up to maximal pressures, the volume and resistivity relax logarithmically in time with roughly the same rate as in the case of g-As2Te3. The residual densification of g-As3Te2 after pressure release is roughly twice as high as for g-As2Te3 and equals 3.5%, the conductivity of the compacted glass is about three orders of magnitude higher than that of the as-prepared sample. Under normal conditions, a considerable relaxation of the volume and resistivity has been observed. As for densified g-GeS2 glass, the logarithmic kinetics of this relaxation has been successfully described in terms of our earlier model based on the concept of relaxation self-organized criticality with the activation energy (1.3 eV) remaining unchanged up to 5 × 106 s.
Publisher
The Russian Academy of Sciences