Mechanical milling and SPS used to obtain GeS2-βGeS2 infrared glass-ceramic

This work provides a new approach for preparing chalcogenide glasses and glass-ceramics. A process combining the mechanical milling and the spark plasma sintering was developed to synthesize non-linear chalcogenide glass-ceramic. GeS2 glass-ceramics containing β-GeS2 crystals homogenously dispersed within the glassy matrix were manufactured. Their transmission reaches 30% in the infrared region. This new method overcomes the limitation of the traditional way for preparing GeS2 glass-ceramics where an uncontrollable crystallization leads to the glass opacity. The non-centro-symmetric β-GeS2 phase makes the GeS2/β-GeS2 glass-ceramic a very promising material for the generation of permanent second order non-linear phenomenon.