Electrophysical and structural-sensitive properties of liquid In2Te3 with 3d metal admixtures

Temperature dependencies of the electrical conductivity (up to 1700 K), thermoelectric power (up to 1700 K) and shear viscosity (up to 1150 K) of the liquid semiconducting alloy In2Te3 with 3d metal admixtures were investigated. It was shown that small amounts (up to 3%) of Ti, V, Fe, Ni increase the electrical conductivity and slightly affect the thermoelectric power values. All the admixtures decrease the viscosity. The In2Te3 is regarded as a double-structured melt with a low-temperature loose-packing structure with crystalline features and a high-temperature dense-packing metallic structure. A melting process implies a structure rearrangement from the short-range structure with a spatial covalent bonds distribution to the more dense-packed structure of the linear chain type. The impurity d-states are manifested in the sp-d hybridization phenomenon.