Increasing the Plasticity of Chalcogenide Glasses in the System Ag₂Se–Sb₂Se₃–GeSe₂

Abstract

We proposed a new concept of increasing the plasticity of chalcogenide glasses while maintaining a high glass transition temperature. The main idea of this concept lies in the formation of Ag–Ag metallophilic interactions when silver chalcogenide is introduced into the glass composition. This suggestion was confirmed by the experimental study of glasses based on the Ag2Se–Sb2Se3–GeSe2 system. It was observed that the introduction of 40 mole percent of Ag2Se into the glass composition leads to the increase of its plasticity by 3.5 times, whereas the glass transition temperature of such glass remains higher than 200 °C. The most typical application area of these materials is infrared (IR) optics. In our case, the addition of silver not only improves the mechanical properties of a glass but also allows one to keep the position of the fundamental absorption edge in the near-IR region (900 nm), which is quite suitable for the aforementioned applications.