Thermal stability and crystallization kinetics of quaternary Sb–Se–Ge–In chalcogenide glasses

• DTA has been carried out on Sb10Se65Ge25−yIny alloys under non-isothermal conditions at different heating rates.
• Eg with In content shows that probability of atoms to jump to lower metastable states increases.
• The heating rate dependence of crystallization temperature shows that Ec decreases.

Thermal analysis plays an important role to know the characteristic behavior of alloys for various applications. Differential thermal analysis has been carried out on Sb10Se65Ge25−yIny (y = 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15) alloys under non-isothermal conditions at different heating rates. We report the analysis of thermal parameters, viz. glass transition temperature, crystallization temperature and melting temperature. The thermal stability factor, reduced glass transition temperature, and heating rate dependence of glass transition and crystallization peaks have been investigated. The dependence of activation energies of glass transition and crystallization with In content have been discussed in terms of energy barrier and chemical bond approach respectively.