Thermal stability and crystallization kinetics of Ge₁₃In₈Se₇₉ chalcogenide glass

ABSTRACT

Ge-In-Se system, similar to many other chalcogenide glasses, has attracted much attention due to its interesting physical properties and applications. This article reports thermal analysis and estimation of activation energies of the glass transition and amorphous-crystallization transformation of Ge₁₃In₈Se₇₉ chalcogenide glass. The kinetic parameters were investigated under a non-isothermal condition at different heating rates (7–40 K/min) using differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) technique. The amorphous nature of the samples was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The activation energy was calculated from DSC data using five isoconversional methods: Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS), Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO), Tang, Starink, and Vyazovkin. The results confirm that the activation energy of crystallization varies and depends on the degree of crystallization as well as temperature. It was also observed that the transformation from amorphous to the crystalline structure is complex involving different mechanisms of nucleation, diffusion, and growth.

KEYWORDS:

• Chalcogenide glass
• Ge-In-Se
• isoconversional methods
• thermal analysis
• activation energy

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Prof. N. Afify and Prof. A.A. Abu-Sehly (Assiut University-Egypt) for their support and valuable discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alaa M. Abd-Elnaiem http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0882-5539