Chalcogen halides IR glasses

New infrared glasses based on chalcogen halides specially tellurium halide are described. These TeX glasses exhibit low optical loss in the 8 - 12 micrometers region and a strong dependence of their thermal properties on the chemical composition. The variation of the refractive index versus temperature T, wavelength (lambda) and composition leads to information on optical dispersion. These ductile, plastic glasses can be molded with an excellent duplication of optical surface and drawn into IR optical fibers with attenuation as low as 0.2 dB/m in the 8 micrometers region.© (1992) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.