A comparative study on the glass-forming ability of some alloys in the Sb-As-Se system by differential scanning calorimetry

The glass-forming ability and devitrification of alloys in the Sb-As-Se system have been studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). A comparison of various simple quantitative methods to assess the level of stability of glassy materials in the above-mentioned system is presented. All these methods are based on the characteristic temperatures, obtained by heating of the samples in non-isothermal regime, such as the glass transition temperature, T_g, the temperature at which crystallization begins, T_in, the temperature corresponding to the maximum crystallization rate, T_p, or the melting temperature, T_m. In this work, a kinetic parameter K_r(T) is added to the stability criteria. The thermal stability of some ternary compounds of Sb_xAs_{0.60−(2x+y)}Se_0.40+x+y-type has been evaluated experimentally and correlated with the activation energies of crystallization by this kinetic criterion and compared with those evaluated by other criteria.