Glass transition, topology, and elastic models of Se-based glasses

Abstract

Features intrinsic to disorder and network aspects are ubiquitous in structural glasses. Among this important class of materials, chalcogenide glasses are special—they are built of short-range covalent forces, making them simpler than silicate glasses that possess mixed ionic and covalent forces. Selenium-based glasses also display complex elastic phase transitions that have been described from various models, including mean-field approaches to molecular simulations. These point to the presence of two sharply defined elastic phase transitions, a rigidity and stress transition that are non-mean-field in character, and separate the three distinct topological phases of flexible, isostatically rigid, and stressed-rigid. This article reviews the physics of these glassy networks. The elastic phases and glass transition temperature are explained on a molecular level in terms of topological constraint theory (TCT), connectivity, and the open degrees of freedom. The broader aspects of TCT in relation to phase change materials, high-k dielectrics, and cements are also commented upon.