Influence of structural changes on diffusion in liquid germanium

Liquid germanium exhibits a change in the bonding character from being more covalent to more metallic while heating. We used quasielastic neutron scattering to measure the absolute value of self-diffusion coefficients in this liquid. Compared to other monoatomic liquids, such as liquid Ni or Ti, the self-diffusivity is an order faster near the melting temperature and shows a non-Arrhenius-like behavior. Above 1325 K, the activation energy for self-diffusion is low and obeys Stokes-Einstein relation. Even though the packing density of liquid germanium is less than that of simple metallic melts such as Pb or Sn, the temperature dependence of self-diffusivity does not exhibit D Tn (n≃2) form, which is observed for uncorrelated binary collisions of hard-spheres. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.