Study of the electrical and optical properties of Ge₂₇Se₅₈Pb₁₅ chalcogenide glass

The present article reports electrical and optical properties of Ge27Se58Pb15 chalcogenide glass prepared through melt quenching technique. The dc electrical conductivity has been studied as a function of temperature and activation energy of conduction has been computed. The electrical study suggest that conduction in the glassy sample takes place via variable range hopping and thermally assisted tunneling of charge carriers. Thermally activated conduction is observed in high temperature range (348–423 K) while in lower temperature range (298–348 K), conduction follows Mott’s VRH model. Besides this, optical constants, i.e. energy band gap, refractive index, etc. were also computed for thin film of Ge27Se58Pb15 glass and band gap value suggest that sample is a semiconductor.