Electromagnetic Radiation Driven Phase Transition in Silver Telluride-Iron Oxide and Iron Telluride Nano-Composites

摘要

Temperature-dependent switchability of electrical property has drawn a lot of attention recently. In this article, electromagnetic (EM) radiation is used to induce temperature change in silver telluride and iron telluride nanostructures, which can be potentially used to trigger electrical property changes in them. Due to the low EM absorptivity of silver telluride nanowire, heating it via EM fields is very challenging. To enhance its EM absorptivity, various percentages (by mass) of iron oxide powder are mixed into it. It is verified that, similar to pure silver telluride, the mixture also exhibits a rapid change in electrical conductivity within a certain temperature range. The experiment is designed to characterize the EM absorptivity of three such mixtures with different percentage compositions and an iron telluride nanodisk in the X-band frequency range (8 to 12 GHz). The temperature increase induced by the absorbed EM energy will lead to the rapid change of electrical conductivity by alpha-type to beta-type phase transition in silver telluride and p-type to n-type transition in iron telluride, which can be potentially used to develop EM sensors for applications in communication technology.