Expansion of the Application of Chalcogenide Glasses for Establishment of Radiation Doses through Electrical Measurements

Chalcogenide glasses are a long term material of interest due to their excellent properties like fast phase crystalline/amorphous transition, which gave rise of their application for non-volatile memory and optical recording, or formation of electron hole pairs by irradiation with light from visible to very short wavelengths like x-rays, which is applied for environmental monitoring and radiology. One newly emerging field of their application is usage of these glasses for radiation sensing of γ rays. We will show the principles on which this sensing relies, based on combination of the carriers' generation and silver diffusion in the active area of the devices. Our study expands over Ge-containing chalcogenide glasses and includes study of the structural and defects generation effects as a results of γ radiation. We identified a dual character of the γ radiation induced effects and their compositional dependence and discuss this based on defects creation in the chalcogenide matrix. Data will be presented from our studies related to structural and compositional changes occurring as well as by radiation induced silver diffusion in the chalcogenide glasses. The device structure modeling with Comsol software and devices' process flow will illustrate the different device structures. The device performance will be demonstrated with electrical testing data. They are discussed related to the material's composition and structure by which the leading role of the layered glass structure of the Ge rich glasses is specifically emphasized. In conclusion different modes of application of the sensing devices will be suggested like real time radiation sensing and reversibility, i.e. reversing the device in the initial condition after cessation the γ radiation due to application of a reverse bias over the devices.