Viscosity of liquid tellurium doped with 3D transition metals

The viscosity of liquid tellurium doped with 3D transition metals was measured. The experimental results demonstrate that small (up to 3 at.%) additions of the transition metal increase the viscosity by up to 50%. Temperature dependence of the tellurium viscosity suggests a possibility to form the chain structures during melting. It was assumed that doping of the 3D metal with a complicated outer electron configuration leads to some recovering of the destroyed bonds and forcing of a complex formation, which, in turn, results in the viscosity increasing. A volume fraction of clusters in liquid tellurium is evaluated from viscosity and density measurements. An influence of the 3D transition metals on evolution of the alloy structure is analyzed.