基于Sn掺杂Ge2Sb2Te5的相变存储器器件单元存储性能

采用0.18μm标准工艺制备出基于Sn掺杂Ge2Sb2Te5相变材料的相变存储器器件单元,利用自行设计搭建的电学测试系统研究了其存储性能.结果表明:Sn的掺杂没有改变Ge2Sb2Te5的相变特性,其相变阚值电压和阈值电流分别为1.6V和25μA;实现了器件单元的非晶态(高阻)与晶态(低阻)之间的可逆相变过程;器件单元中相变材料结晶所需电流最低为1.78mA(电流宽度固定为100ns)、结晶时间大于80ns(电流高度固定为3mA);相变材料非晶化脉冲电流宽度为30ns时,所需电流大于3.3mA;与Ge2Sb2Te5相比,Sn的掺杂降低了SET操作的脉冲电流宽度,提高了结晶速度,有利于提高相变存储器的存储速度.     

溅射功率对Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜光学常数的影响

研究了溅射功率对Ｇｅ２Ｓｂ２Ｔｅ５薄膜的光学常数与波长关系的影响。结果表明,在波长小于５００ｎｍ的情况下,随溅射功率的增加非晶态薄膜的折射率ｎ先增加然后减小,消光系数ｋ则逐渐减小;在波长大于５００ｎｍ的情况下,随溅射功率的增加折射率ｎ逐渐减少,消光系数ｋ先减小后增加。对于晶态薄膜样品,在整个波长范围折射率ｎ随溅射功率的增加减小后增加,消光系数ｋ则逐渐减少。薄膜样品的光学常数,在长波长范围随波长变化较大,在短波长范围变化较小。讨论了溅射功率对Ｇｅ２Ｓｂ２Ｔｅ５薄膜的光学常数影响的机理。     

Ge2Sb2Te5材料与非挥发相转变存储器单元器件特性

对Ge2Sb2Te5材料的结构、形貌和电学特性进行了表征,将材料应用于不挥发存储单元器件中并研究了器件性能。研究了退火温度对薄膜电阻率的影响,发现在从高阻向低阻状态转变的过程中,电阻率下降的趋势发生变化,形成拐点,分析表明这是由于在拐点处结构由面心立方向密排六方结构转变所致;对不同厚度Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜的电阻率进行了分析,结果表明当厚度薄于70nm时,电阻率随厚度显著上升而迁移率下降,材料晶态电学性能的测量显示,材料有正电阻温度系数并以空穴导电;测量了Ge2Sb2Fe5非挥发相转变存储器单元的I-V曲线,发现有阈值特性,在晶态时电学特性呈欧姆特性,非晶态时I-V低场为线性关系,电场较高时呈指数关系。     

激光致溅射沉积Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜的结晶行为研究

利用ＸＲＤ研究了激光致溅射沉积Ｇｅ_２Ｓｂ_２Ｔｅ_５薄膜的结晶行为;研究发现,与热致相变不同的是,激光致相变只发生从非晶态到ＦＣＣ晶态结构的转变,从ＦＣＣ到ＨＣＰ的结构转变不再发生,这有利于提高相变光盘的信噪比．Ｇｅ_２Ｓｂ_２Ｔｅ_５薄膜的结晶程度受初始化功率和转速的影响．     

制备条件对Bi2Te3和Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3材料热电性能的影响

采用水热法制备Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3纳米粉体并热压制备块体热电材料.用X射线衍射分析产物的相结构和成分,扫描显微镜与透射电镜观察产物的形貌.测量试样从室温到700K的塞贝克系数与电导率.实验结果表明,使用水热法制备了Bi2Te3与Sb2Te3纳米粉体,经热压后部分氧化.热压温度对于块体试样热电性能影响显著.     

激光致溅射沉积Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜的结晶行为研究

利用XRD研究了激光致溅射沉积Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜的结晶行为，研究发现，与热致相变不同的是，激光致相变只发生从非晶态到FCC晶态结构的转变，从FCC与HCP的结构转变不再发生，这有利于提高相变光盘的信噪比。Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜的结晶程度受初始化功率和转速的影响。     

聚焦脉冲激光作用下Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜晶化过程及机理

采用聚焦脉冲激光研究了Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在沉积和激光淬火两种非晶态下反射率与激光脉冲宽度变化的关系，发现沉积态的Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在晶化触发阶段内的反射率随激光脉冲宽度增加而减小，经过激光淬火的非晶态Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在晶化触发阶段内的反射率随激光脉冲宽度增加而变化平缓。本文借用气－液体系中过饱和度分析液滴形成的原理，从统计物理学角度详细研究了两种非晶态Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在脉冲激光作用下的晶化过程及机理，结果表明，当Ge2Sb2Te5的非晶态程度处于未饱和或饱和状态时不形成晶核；当Ge2Sb2Te5的非晶态程度处于过饱和状态时，此时的Ge2Sb2Te5为亚稳态，可能形成大小不等的晶核，但只有半径大于临界晶核尺寸时才可能长大成晶粒，而应力降低晶化能垒，增加非晶态Ge2Sb2Te5的过饱和度是导致沉积态与激光淬火态的Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在晶化触发阶段内反射率随激光脉冲宽度变化规律不一致的根本原因，并据此解释了Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜在这两种状态下的反射率随激光脉冲宽度的变化特点及规律。     

Sn掺杂Ge-Sb-Te相变薄膜的晶化特性

用磁控溅射法制备了掺杂Sn的Ge2Sb2Te5相变材料薄膜,研究了Sn含量对结晶性能的影响.薄膜的X射线衍射(XRD)表明,热处理使薄膜发生了从非晶态到晶态的相变,并出现Sn-Te相.通过示差扫描量热(DSC)实验测出在不同加热速率下非晶态薄膜粉末的结晶峰温度,计算了材料的结晶活化能.根据结晶动力学分析和结晶活化能数据,掺杂Sn后的Ge-Sb-Te具有更高的结晶速率,用于光存储时将具有更高的擦除速度.     

非化学计量比Gd5Si2Ge2合金的磁热性能研究

在使用纯度为99．94％（质量分数）的国产稀土金属Gd的基础上，研究了非化学计量比的Gd5Si2Ge2合金的磁热效应。结果表明：适量的非化学计量比可以使合金保持一级磁相变的特征并表现出巨磁热效应，而且还使居里点有所提高。     

聚焦脉冲激光作用下Ge2Sb2Te5薄膜晶化过程及机理

采用聚焦脉冲激光研究了Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在沉积和激光淬火两种非晶态下反射率与激光脉冲宽度变化的关系,发现沉积态的Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在晶化触发阶段内的反射率随激光脉冲宽度增加而减小,经过激光淬火的非晶态Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在晶化触发阶段内的反射率随激光脉冲宽度增加而变化平缓.本文借用气-液体系中过饱和度分析液滴形成的原理,从统计物理学角度详细研究了两种非晶态Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在脉冲激光作用下的晶化过程及机理,结果表明,当Ge₂Sb₂Te₅的非晶态程度处于未饱和或饱和状态时不形成晶核;当Ge₂Sb₂Te₅的非晶态程度处于过饱和状态时,此时的Ge₂Sb₂Te₅为亚稳态,可能形成大小不等的晶核,但只有半径大于临界晶核尺寸时才可能长大成晶粒.而应力降低晶化能垒,增加非晶态Ge₂Sb₂Te₅的过饱和度是导致沉积态与激光淬火态的Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在晶化触发阶段内反射率随激光脉冲宽度变化规律不一致的根本原因,并据此解释了Ge₂Sb₂Te₅薄膜在这两种状态下的反射率随激光脉冲宽度的变化特点及规律.     

Study of Ge2Sb2Te5 Film for Nonvolatile Memory Medium

The amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5 film with stoichiometric compositions was deposited by co-sputtering of separate Ge, Sb, and Te targets on SiO2/Si (100) wafer in ultrahigh vacuum magnetron sputtering apparatus. The crystallization behavior of amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5 film was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). With an increase of annealing temperature, the amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5 film undergoes a two-step crystallization process that it first crystallizes in face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystal structure and finally fcc structure changes to hexagonal (hex) structure. Activation energy values of 3.636±0.137 and 1.579±0.005 eV correspond to the crystallization and structural transformation processes, respectively. From annealing temperature dependence of the film resistivity, it is determined that the first steep decrease of the resistivity corresponds to crystallization while the second one is primarily caused by structural transformation from     

The Mechanism of the Amorphous-to-Crystalline Transition in Ge2Sb2Te5 Ternary Alloys1

The kinetics of the amorphous-to-crystalline phase transformation in alloys with compositions around Ge₂Sb₂Te₅, used as erasable optical memories, was investigated by electric impedance, Raman spectroscopy, and optical and transmission electron microscopy. To induce the transformation, isothermal and isokinetic experiments were carried out at various temperatures and various heating rates. The results obtained agree with the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami model and show that the overall activation energy for the transition is about 8 eV, which exceeds previous estimations. The nucleation process changes during the transition and depends on both temperature and heating rate. The available data indicate that nuclei are formed both in the bulk and at the surface of crystallites, and that the structural details of the material (the crystallite size, in particular) depend greatly on the transformation conditions. Intercrystalline inclusions, which appear after the transition, contain Te precipitates within a structurally disordered phase. These inclusions have electrical and optical properties essentially different as compared to the rest of the sample; they could be residual phases formed due to the nonstoichiometric nature of the samples.     

Amorphous structure melt-quenched from defective Ge2Sb2Te5

Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) is a technologically important phase-change material for data storage, where the fast reversible phase transition between crystalline and amorphous states is used for recording information. The encoding is achieved by the large contrast in physical properties between the two states. Ge vacancies (V_Ge) and Sb antisite atoms (Sb_Te) are primary point defects in crystalline GST. The effect of V_Ge and Sb_Te on the atomic arrangements in amorphous GST is unknown, which, however, has significant effects on the performance of GST. In this work, by means of ab initio molecular dynamics calculations, the atomic arrangements in amorphous ideal and defective GST have been investigated. The results show that the amorphous structure of GST with Sb_Te (St-GST) or with V_Ge (V-GST) has the same cubic framework and close chemical ordering to ideal GST, and hence similar fast reversible phase transition behavior is expected in the defective phases. Furthermore, the presence of Sb_Te or V_Ge in the crystalline phase will result in much more Ge atoms in a tetrahedral geometry as well as in a fourfold octahedral environment in the amorphous state. Especially in V-GST, around 36 % Ge atoms occupy a fourfold octahedral geometry. As fourfold octahedral Ge atoms can enhance the large contrast in physical properties between the crystalline and amorphous phases, introducing Ge vacancies would be an efficient way to improve the performance of GST phase-change materials.     

Switching between Crystallization from the Glassy and the Undercooled Liquid Phase in Phase Change Material Ge2Sb2Te5

Controlling crystallization kinetics is key to overcome the temperature–time dilemma in phase change materials employed for data storage. While the amorphous phase must be preserved for more than 10 years at slightly above room temperature to ensure data integrity, it has to crystallize on a timescale of several nanoseconds following a moderate temperature increase to near 2/3 T_m to compete with other memory devices such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Here, a calorimetric demonstration that this striking variation in kinetics involves crystallization occurring either from the glassy or from the undercooled liquid state is provided. Measurements of crystallization kinetics of Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ with heating rates spanning over six orders of magnitude reveal a fourfold decrease in Kissinger activation energy for crystallization upon the glass transition. This enables rapid crystallization above the glass transition temperature T_g. Moreover, highly unusual for glass‐forming systems, crystallization at conventional heating rates is observed more than 50 °C below T_g, where the atomic mobility should be vanishingly small.     

Size-dependent surface-induced heterogeneous nucleation driven phase-change in Ge2Sb2Te5 nanowires

By combining electron microscopy and size-dependent electrical measurements, we demonstrate surface-induced heterogeneous nucleation-dominant mechanism for recrystallization of amorphous phase-change Ge2Sb2Te5 nanowires. Heterogeneous nucleation theory quantitatively predicts the nucleation rates that vary by 5 orders of magnitude from 190 to 20 nm lengthscales. Our work demonstrates that increasing the surface-to-volume ratio of nanowires has two effects: lowering of the activation energy barrier due to phonon instability and providing nucleation sites for recrystallization. The systematic study of the effect of surface in phase-change behavior is critical for understanding nanoscale phase-transitions and design of nonvolatile memory devices.     

Phase equilibria in the Sb2Te3-Ag2Te system

The Sb₂Te₃-Ag₂Te system has been reinvestigated and the phase relations identified by various independent techniques. An intermediate phase with Ag₁₉Sb₂₉Te₅₂ composition, through incongruently melting can be obtained as a single crystal from melts enriched in Ag₂Te. It behaves as a solid solution of narrow homogeneity range (from 42 to 44% Ag₂Te).