Viscosity of liquid tellurium doped with 3D transition metals

The viscosity of liquid tellurium doped with 3D transition metals was measured. The experimental results demonstrate that small (up to 3 at.%) additions of the transition metal increase the viscosity by up to 50%. Temperature dependence of the tellurium viscosity suggests a possibility to form the chain structures during melting. It was assumed that doping of the 3D metal with a complicated outer electron configuration leads to some recovering of the destroyed bonds and forcing of a complex formation, which, in turn, results in the viscosity increasing. A volume fraction of clusters in liquid tellurium is evaluated from viscosity and density measurements. An influence of the 3D transition metals on evolution of the alloy structure is analyzed. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.