Thermophysical and Optical Properties of Semiconducting Ga2Te3 Melt

The majority of bulk semiconductor single crystals are presently grown from their melts. The thermophysical and optical properties of the melts provide a fundamental understanding of the melt structure and can be used to optimize the growth conditions to obtain higher quality crystals. In this paper, we report several thermophysical and optical properties for Ga2Te3 melts, such as electrical conductivity, viscosity, and optical transmission for temperatures ranging from the melting point up to approximately 990 C. The conductivity and viscosity of the melts are determined using the transient torque technique. The optical transmission of the melts is measured between the wavelengths of 300 and 2000 nm by an dual beam reversed-optics spectrophotometer. The measured properties are in good agreement with the published data. The conductivities indicate that the Ga2Te3 melt is semiconductor-like. The anomalous behavior in the measured properties are used as an indication of a structural transformation in the Ga2Te3 melt and discussed in terms of Eyring's and Bachinskii's predicted behaviors for homogeneous melts.