Relationship between heat effects and shear modulus relaxation during structural relaxation of a telluride glass

We performed parallel measurements of heat effects and shear modulus relaxation for glassy Te$_{75}$Ge$_{15}$Ga$_{10}$ taken as a representative of practically important non-metallic glasses with covalent bonding. It is shown that the heat effects occurring upon heating are quantitatively linked to the shear moduli in the glassy and crystalline states and their temperature derivatives as implied by Eq.(1), which was originally derived for metallic glasses. This relationship provides a good description of exo- and endothermal reactions using shear modulus relaxation data as an input. This is the first application of this approach to a non-metallic glass with directional interatomic bonding. The obtained results suggest that relaxation phenomena are governed by elastic dipoles -- atomic configurations with the symmetry lower than that of surrounding matrix.