Int. J. New. Hor. Phys. 2, No. 1, 21-24 (2015) 21 International Journal of New Horizons in Physics http://dx.doi.org/10.12785/ijnhp/020104 Temperature Dependent Electrical Study of Ge 17 Se 74 Sb 9 Thin Film Pankaj Sharma ∗ and Vineet Sharma Department of Physics and Materials Science, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, H.P.-173234, India. Received: 15 Sep 2014, Revised: 25 Nov 2014, Accepted: 10 Dec 2014 Published online: 01 Jan 2015 Abstract: Bulk sample of Ge 17 Se 74 Sb 9 alloy was prepared using melt-quench technique. Thin film of the alloy was deposited using thermal evaporation. Thin film was characterized by x-ray diffraction and current-voltage measurements were obtained at different temperatures ranging from 298K to 348K at a step of 5K using an electrometer and were found to be ohmic in nature. The temperature and voltage dependence of resistivity of thin film has been studied. Keywords: Chalcogenide glasses; Resistivity; Activation energy. 1 Introduction Continuous progress in chalcogenide glasses has imposed either new or an improvement in their properties. Chalcogenide glasses have the major advantage that these can be synthesized in any batch or compositions using the traditional melt quench technique. These glasses are finding applications in infrared optical elements, infrared optical fibres, switching and memory devices, solar cells, phase change optical recording media [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Among various chalcogenide glass compositions Ge − Se − Sb system is of quite interest due to its high transparency in 2 m to 14 m region and high nonlinear optical properties [8, 9, 10]. Although Ge − Se − As system shows very good properties in III-IV-VI chalcogenide glasses but working with As is health hazardous [11]. The replacement of As with Sb also shows nearly similar properties [12, 13]. Moreover, Ge − Se − Sb system has relatively lower vapour pressure in comparison to Ge − As − Se system [14]. Among various Ge − Se − Sb glassy compositions we have taken Ge 17 Se 83 , as it is the bearer of short range order of initial components and also exhibit compound short range order formed from both the initial components [15]; then Se is replaced with Sb. The usefulness of these glassy systems lies on the ability to engineer their properties to meet the particular demands. The tailoring of these glasses for their particular properties is possible but we are not having enough data of these glassy systems so as to choose them according to compositions. Authors have already reported the physical, optical and structural bonding arrangements for the above said system [16, 17, 18]. In the present communication, our aim is to develop a basic understanding on the temperature dependent electrical properties. We have investigated the Ge 17 Se 74 Sb 9 thin films for their intrinsic dark dc resistivity and other electrical parameters using the temperature dependent current-voltage studies. 2 Experimental details Glassy composition of Ge 17 Se 74 Sb 9 alloy has been prepared by using the well-known melt quench technique. The details of experimental procedure may be seen elsewhere [16, 17, 18]. The thin film of this glassy composition has been deposited using the thermal evaporation at a base pressure of ∼10 −5 mbar (Hindhivac Model No. 12A4D). The thickness of the deposited solid film was monitored during depositions by using a thickness monitor (DTM-101) and it was kept at 600 nm. The composition of the deposited thin film has been checked by an electron microprobe analyzer (JEOL 8600 MX) on different spots (size ∼2μ m) and was uniform within the measurement accuracy of about ±1.5-2.0%. The bulk as well as the thin films of the samples prepared were characterized by the x-ray diffraction (XRD) technique (Philips PW 1710 x-ray diffractometer, Cu Kα ∗ Corresponding author e-mail: pankaj.sharma@juit.ac.in c ⃝ 2015 NSP Natural Sciences Publishing Cor.