Study of phase separation in amorphous Se–Te–Bi material

•Bi doped glasses can be used as optical memory.•Speed of rate of crystallization is slower with increasing Bi.•Eg decreases with increasing Bi content.•X-ray diffraction and FESEM study indicate the transformed phases.

We have prepared ternary Se80Te17Bi3 and Se80Te14Bi6 glasses using melt-quench technique and performed the non-isothermal kinetics by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at various heating rates (β). X-ray diffraction and FESEM have been used to identify the transformed phases. The change in glass transition temperature (Tg) and crystallization temperature (Tc) with heating rates have been used to calculate different crystallization parameters in Se80Te20−xBix chalcogenide glasses. We found that both Tg and Tc becomes larger with increasing β. Activation energies of glass transition (Eg) and crystallization (Ec), the crystallization enthalpy (Hc), thermal stability and glass forming ability (GFA) were determined from the dependency of Tg and Tc on heating rates. From our experimental data, the temperature difference (Tc − Tg) and Hc are largest and lowest, respectively, for Se80Te17Bi3 glass, which shows that Se80Te17Bi3 glass is more stable than Se80Te14Bi6 glass.