High pressure room temperature and high pressure low temperature resistivity studies on As-Te-Se glasses

Abstract

The electrical resistivity measurements have been carried out on bulk As_xTe_100-x-ySe_y (30 ≤ ′ ≤ 50; 10 ≤ y ≤ 25) glasses up to 8 Gpa pressure, and temperature down to 77 K. All the As-Te-Se glasses are found to exhibit a continuous semiconductor to metal transition under pressure. However, glasses with a mean coordination number Z ≥ 2.4 show an initial plateau in resistivity, followed by a continuous decrease. This behaviour is consistent with the earlier observation on the As-Te glasses and is explained in terms of the changes in the local structure of the chalcogenide glasses with the composition.

Key Words:

• high pressure effects in solids
• chalcogenide glasses
• metal-insulator transitions