Structural characterization of semiconducting copper tellutrite glasses by high-Q neutron diffraction

The proposal aims to study the structural properties of xCuO-(100-x)TeO2 (x= 30, 40 and 50 mol%) glasses by high-Q neutron diffraction and correlate the the glass short-range and medium-range order with its electronic conductivity. Copper tellurite glasses are semiconducting and their conductivity increases signficantly with an increase in CuO concentration. Conduction is due to the hopping mecahinsm in which an electron jumps from one copper site to another. Reverse Monte Carlo simulations on the neutron diffraction datasets will provide information on the Cu-Cu, Cu-Te, Cu-O, Te-Te and Te-O atomic pair correlations, bond lengths, speciation, bond-angle distributions and correlate the changes in glass structure with conductivity. Insitu high temperature neutron diffraction studies upto 200oC will reveal changes in cation-cation separations that influence the electrical conductivity.