Electrical conductivity and crystallization kinetics of amorphous Ag 10Te 90 and Ag 20Te 80 thin films

Abstract

The d.c. conductivity of thermally evaporated Ag 10Te 90 and Ag 20Te 80 thin films has been studied. Measurement of the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity indicates that the increase of annealing temperature leads to a decrease in the activation energy for conduction E a. In this case the pre-exponential factor and the activation energy E a satisfies Meyer–Neldel rule. Using the electrical conductivity as a characteristic quantity to follow the growth of crystalline phases in the amorphous matrix, the crystallization kinetics have been studied in the glassy Ag–Te films. The results indicated that, the activation energy for crystallization E c under isothermal conditions of the glassy Ag 10Te 90 and Ag 20Te 80 films is 44.723 and 81.228 kJ/mol, respectively. The obtained value of the Avrami index is between 0.867 and 0.952 for all isotherm temperatures, which means that one-dimensional growth mechanism is working in the crystallization process.