Thermal disorder of proustite cationic sublattice

Abstract

Temperature dependences of acoustic emission and relative intensity of some structural x-ray peaks for proustite (Ag3AsS3) samples are investigated in the temperature range 100–300 K. Anomalous behavior of the obtained dependences is observed at T∼150 K. The experimental results have been analyzed by using different models of positional disorder of the silver sublattice. The entire body of the obtained data can be explained assuming that an increase in temperature starting from T∼150 K leads to predominant disordering of the part of the cationic sublattice of proustite, that is formed by right spirals (AgS)∞.