New tellurium based glasses for use in bio-sensing applications - art. no. 64330U
Résumé
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 Tg, the glass transition temperature, and Tx, the onset crystallization temperature, were measured in order to obtain ΔT, the difference between Tg and Tx, which must be maximized for optimum fiber drawing ability. The resulting glass transition temperature range lies between 139oC and 174oC, with ΔT values between 64oC and 124oC. 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.