Molecular structure of ternary Ge–As–Te glasses studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy

Abstract Local environments in As–Ge–Te glasses are studied using 125Te and 119Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy. Complementary to previous works on the binary As–Te and Ge–Te systems, the influence of Te content is reported in the ternary As–Ge–Te system. Particular attention is made in fitting the observed lineshapes, first using a `classical' method and second using a quadrupole splitting distribution. The results show evidence of three Te local environments, a 3-fold co-ordinated site and a pair of 2-fold co-ordinated sites. The concentration of the 3-fold co-ordinated Te site is found to increase with As content of glasses, suggesting specific microscopic structures of the observed sites.