Crystallization kinetics of overlapping phases in Se70Te15Sb15 using isoconversional methods

The crystallization kinetics of Se70Te15Sb15 chalcogenide glass was studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) under non-isothermal conditions. This glass was found to have a double glass transition and double overlapped crystalline phases. The overlapped crystalline phases were successfully separated using the Gaussian lit model. The activation energy, E-c, and Avrami index, n, were determined by analyzing the data using the Matausita et. al. method. A strong heating rate depending on the activation energy for the two crystalline peaks was observed. The results indicated that the transformation from amorphous to crystalline phases is a complex process involving different mechanisms of nucleation and growth. The variation of activation energy with crystalline fraction was determined by Kissenger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) method. The obtained results of directly fitting the experimental DSC data to the calculated DSC curves indicated that the crystallization process of Se70Te15Sb15 glass cannot be satisfactorily described by the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) model. Simulation results indicated that the Sestak-Berggren (SB) model is more suitable to describe the crystallization process for the studied glass. The crystalline phases for the two events were identified by using x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Published by Elsevier GmbH. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0).