Infrared chalcogenide glass

Germanium Arsenic Selenium Tellurium - Chalcogenide Glass

In recent years, chalcogenide glass is regarded as a new generation of infrared optical lens materials.  Common infrared optical materials mainly include ZnSe crystal, Si single crystal, Ge single crystal, chorionic glass, fluoride and so on.  

Chalcogenide glass is a kind of infrared optical material with excellent performance. It is mainly composed of S, Se and Te in the periodic table VIA group, and introduces a certain amount of other metal-like elements (Ga, Ge, As, Sb, etc.), which can be divided into three systems: sulfur (S) glass, Selenium (Se) glass and tellurium (Te) glass.  

Chalcogenide glass is a kind of amorphous material, which has weaker covalent bond property compared with oxide glass.  The band gap is 1-3 eV, which is smaller than oxide glass (~10 eV) and has semiconductor properties.  

In addition, chorionic glass also has excellent infrared transmittance, high optical nonlinearity, low phonon energy, light induction effect, semiconductor characteristics, fast ion conductivity characteristics, which can be used in automotive night vision devices, infrared imagers, life detectors, infrared shoulder missiles, night vision guns and other fields.  

In addition to the above introduction, sulfur glass has an application technology - precision molding.  In 2003, Dr. Xianghua Zhang of Umicore Company in France first realized the precision molding technology of spherical and aspherical lens of Ge22As20Se58 and Ge20Sb15Se65 chio glass. The shape error of the molding sample (the difference between the molded surface and the design surface) was less than 0.5 μm, which was equivalent to the machining accuracy of the single-point diamond lathe.  It has been supplied to BMW high-grade car night vision device in batches.