Abstract
Despite being close neighbors on the Periodic Table, selenium and tellurium present a totally different abilities to form glasses. Se is a very good glass former, and gives rise to numerous glass compositions which are popular for their transparency in the infrared range and their stability against crystallization. These glasses can be shaped into sophisticated optical devices such as optical fibers, planar guides or lenses. Nevertheless, their transparencies are limited at about 12 µm (depending on the thickness of the optical systems) due to the relatively small mass of the Se element. On the other hand, tellurium is heavier and its use in substitution for Se permits to shift the IR cutoff beyond 20 µm. However, the semimetallic nature of Te limits its glass formation ability and this glass family is known to be unstable and consequently has found application as phase change material in the Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) technology. In this paper, after a review of selenide glasses and their applications, it will be shown how, in a recent past, it has been possible to stabilize tellurium glasses by introducing new elements like Ga or I in their compositions.
Highlights
Despite being close neighbours on the Periodic Table and having similar electronic structure, Se andTe are totally opposite in terms of their ability to form glassy materials [1,2,3,4]
When synthesizing chalcogenide glasses the key chemical strategy is based on the formation of a polymeric melt exhibiting flexibility in the chemical bond angles which will result in the formation of a floppy network retaining strong chemical bonds but having no periodicity
The development of infrared technologies such as night vision cameras or bio-optical sensors is driving the search for new amorphous materials that combine unprecedented wide optical window with optimal rheological properties
Summary
Despite being close neighbours on the Periodic Table and having similar electronic structure, Se and. When synthesizing chalcogenide glasses the key chemical strategy is based on the formation of a polymeric melt exhibiting flexibility in the chemical bond angles which will result in the formation of a floppy network retaining strong chemical bonds but having no periodicity When cooling down such a liquid the reorganisation of the skeleton is very slow and almost impossible when the temperature drops down and the viscosity increases. The main strategy for synthesizing new infrared glasses is based on the creation of a covalent polymeric framework involving elements having similar electro-negativity This means that the central elements such as Se or Te have to be combined with close neighbour atoms in the Periodic Table such. Disk (DVD) technology [7,8,9]
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