First steps towards the thermomechanical characterization of chalcogenide glass using quantitative infrared thermography

•Thermoelastic coupling in chalcogenide glasses produces detectable heat source.•Full temperature field measurements are performed by using infrared thermography.•Temperature variations during cyclic tests reach a few hundredths of a degree.•Temperature fields are processed to obtain stress fields.

This paper focuses on the thermoelastic behavior of chalcogenide glasses. For this purpose, an original experiment was developed to measure the thermal field at the surface of an AsSe glass specimen submitted to cyclic mechanical loading. The specimen geometry was chosen in such a way that a high stress gradient was induced by the loading conditions. The temperature field was measured by means of infrared thermography. The framework of thermal stress analysis (TSA) was then used to successfully map the stress field at the surface of the specimen by processing the thermal fields. The main result is that classical thermoelastic response is observed in chalcogenide glass without disturbances such as photo-irradiation. This work is a first step towards the characterization of the thermomechanical sensitivity of chalcogenide glasses.