Some New Observations on Activation Energy of Crystal Growth for Thermally Activated Crystallization

Calorimetric study of glass/crystal phase transformation in disordered semiconductors is a significant tool for understanding their crystallization kinetics. Such studies provide the basis for practical application of glasses. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is one of the advanced techniques for the analysis of thermally induced crystallization in glassy or amorphous systems. We are reporting the nonisothermal DSC measurements on four amorphous systems of Se70Te30 alloy with Ag, Cd, Sb, and Zn as chemical modifiers. In general, the rate constant (K) shows Arrhenian dependence on temperature (T), i.e., K = K0 exp (-Eg/RT) where Eg is the activation energy of crystal growth and K0 is called the pre-exponential factor of rate constant. In the present work, an experiment is designed to see the effect of composition on the activation energy of crystal growth. We have found Meyer-Neldel relation (MNR) between Eg and K0 for present systems. Another interesting feature of present work is the observation of further relation between Meyer-Neldel prefactor and Meyer-Neldel energy.