| Abstract: | Research on liquid tellurium is reviewed and interpreted in an effort to obtain a consistent picture of the effect of pressure and temperature on the structure and properties of tellurium in the liquid state. Electrical resistance experiments on liquid tellurium support the existence of reaction boundaries in the p–T diagram. The boundaries are believed to identify stages in the reaction whereby the 2-coordinate covalent chain structure transforms to a 3-coordinate covalent network structure which eventually dissociates with pressure and temperature into a metallic system. The increasing liquid density associated with the molecular reaction is given as the cause of the maximum on the P–T melting curve. The melting curve maximum in tellurium is shown to be related to maxima in selenium and sulfur. Quenching tellurium from different liquid fields, delineated by reaction boundaries, resulted in materials with different x-ray spectra. |
