New tellurium based glasses for use in bio-sensing applications

摘要

A new family of Tellurium based glasses from the Ge-Te-I ternary system has been investigated for use in bio-sensing applications. A systematic series of compositions have been synthesized in order to explore the ternary phase diagram in an attempt to optimize the glass composition for the fiber drawing process. The characteristic temperatures T_g, the glass transition temperature, and T_x, the onset crystallization temperature, were measured in order to obtain △T, the difference between T_g and T_x, which must be maximized for optimum fiber drawing ability. The resulting glass transition temperature range lies between 139℃ and 174℃, with △T values between 64℃ and 124℃. The mechanical properties of a selected number of glass compositions were also investigated, including hardness and Young's Modulus. The Ge-Te-I glasses have an effective transmission window between 2-27 microns, encompassing the region of interest for the identification of biologically relevant species such as carbon dioxide. Furthermore, the fibering potential of the Ge-Te-I glasses makes them an interesting candidate for use in fiber evanescent wave spectroscopy (FEWS) and other bio-sensing applications.