Devitrification characteristics of GexSe1?x glasses

Amorphous Ge_xSe_1?x compounds have been prepared and carefully characterized in the range 0 ? x ? 0.43 (density and micro-hardness measurements and DTA experiments). By heating samples from the amorphous phase, the crystallization process has been investigated for 0.15 ? x ? 0.30. An immiscibility gap in the vitreous region is determined by optical microscopy, from phase-separation observations; moreover, a new metastable crystalline phase appearing as an intermediate step between phase separation and stable GeSe₂ is described.