Optical and other physical properties of semiconducting cadmium vanadate glasses

Abstract

The optical and other physical properties of semiconducting xV₂O₅-(1-x)CdO glasses have been reported in this article. The changes in both density and molar volume indicate structural modification of crystalline V₂O₅ due to addition of CdO. The glass transition temperatures are observed to decrease with an increase in V₂O₅ content in the compositions. It has been observed from the analysis of Fourier-transform infrared spectra that the network structure strongly depends upon the V₂O₅ content in the glass compositions. Introduction of CdO into the V₂O₅ matrix changes the two-dimensional layer structure of the crystalline V₂O₅ into a more complicated three-dimensional structure. The fundamental absorption edge for all the glasses is analyzed in terms of the theory proposed by Davis and Mott [ E. A. Davis and N. F. Mott, Philos. Mag. 22, 903 (1970) ]. The position of absorption edge and, hence, the value of the optical band gap are found to depend on the V₂O₅ content in the glass compositions.