Electrical switching behaviour of semiconducting aluminium telluride glasses

Semiconducting chalcogenide glasses, AI_xTe_100-x with the atomic percentage of aluminium (x) varying between 15 and 25, have been prepared by the vacuum sealed-melt quenching technique. The I-V characteristics of these samples have been measured at four different temperatures using a custom-built PC-based system. All the compositions studied are found to exhibit a current-controlled negative resistance irreversible switching behaviour. Furthermore, it is observed that there is an increase in the switching field 'E_t' of AI_xTe_100-1 glasses with increasing Al content. The threshold field for a given composition is found to decrease with increasing temperature.