Effect of composition on the thermal stability for Ge-In-Se intermediate compound

The glass formation and devitrification of intermediate alloys in the Ge-In-Se system were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). A comparison of various simple quantitative methods to assess the level of stability of the glassy materials in the above-mentioned system is presented. All of these methods are based on characteristic temperatures, such as the glass transition temperature, Tg, the onset temperature of crystallization, Tc, the temperature corresponding to the maximum crystallization rate, Tp and the melting temperature, Tm. In this work, the parameter of kinetic criterion Kr(T) is added to the stability criteria. The intermediate glass formation and devitrification of Ge8In8Se84 proved that it is more stable than the other intermediate compositions under test because the activation energy of transition, Eg (97.2 kJ/mol) of this composition shows minimum, at its average coordination number r = 2.4.