The effect on the optical and physical properties with the addition of In content: constraint, heat of atomization, optical energy gap and the energetic parameter of (Ge0.17Se0.83)100–xInx (x = 0, 5, 10, 15, at %) glassy alloy were examined theoretically. Optical gap was determined from the heat of atomization data by Balkanski procedure and the energetic distribution of the gap. The introduction of a third element increases the disorder in the system and decreases the optical band gap values.

Chalcogenide glasses are band gap semiconductors and are infrared transmitting (Seddon, 1995). Selenium (Se) has been found to have tremendous potential in device technology (Predeep et al., 1996) since it exhibits a unique property of reversible transformation. These properties make the glasses very useful in memory devices. However, the shortcomings of pure glassy Se for practical application include its short lifetime, low sensitivity, and thermal instability. To overcome these difficulties certain additives like Silver (Ag), Indium (In), Tellurium (Te) etc., are routinely used (Mousa et al., 2000). The addition of a third element to (Shamshad et al., 2002) the binary system expands the glass forming area and also creates compositional and configurational disorder in the system.

This paper reports the compositional effect of In on the optical and physical properties of Germanium (Ge)-Selenium (Se)-Indium (In) system. In is chosen as an additive material because it alloys with most of the metals and modified their physical properties (Shaaban et al., 2008).

Physics Journal, Electrical Transport Properties, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Magnetotransport Data, Antiferromagnetic Semiconductors, Chemical Precipitation Method, Nanocrystalline Manganites, Perovskite Structure, Citrate-gel Method, Polycrystalline Perovskite Material, Debye Scherrer Formula.