Author(s)

Elena A. Chechetkina

Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences (1980-2011), Moscow, Russia.

Photostructural changes and electrical switching are the well-known features of amorphous chalcogenides, also known as glassy semiconductors. Although the both phenomena were intensively studied experimentally and have a wide practical application, their nature is debated up to now. I propose a new approach that considers glass as a self-organizing system owing to characteristic instability of chemical bonding in the form of bond wave. The bond wave model is shown to be suitable for explanation of the observed effects in thin films under the action of light or electrical field, a result that opens a new way for understanding and managing the processes in glassy semiconductors.

Glassy Semiconductors, Self-Organization, Photostructural Changes, Electrical Switching

Chechetkina, E. (2018) Photostructural Changes and Electrical Switching in Amorphous Chalcogenides: Bond Waves in Thin Films. Natural Science, 10, 70-80. doi: 10.4236/ns.2018.102007.