Alleviating the trade-off between thermal stability and fast switching in Ru-doped Sb3Te phase change films
Abstract
Phase change memory is a promising candidate for next-generation nonvolatile memory. Improving the amorphous thermal stability of phase-change materials usually comes at the expense of crystallization speed, because suppressing nucleation tends to slow phase transition kinetics. Here, we show that Ru doping in Sb3Te films can significantly enhance thermal stability while preserving fast switching speed. Structural analyses indicate that Ru disrupts the long-range order of the crystalline phase, which improves amorphous stability. Meanwhile, transmission electron microscopy demonstrates that although long-range order is perturbed, the crystal grains largely retain an ordered internal structure with only slight orientational adjustment, minimizing the negative impact on crystal growth. This structural characteristic alleviates the trade-off between thermal stability and crystallization speed, enabling Ru-doped Sb3Te to achieve both improved data retention and rapid switching speed. These findings provide a practical strategy for designing high-performance phase change materials for embedded memory applications.
Article Details
Journal Info
Applied Physics Letters
American Institute of Physics
Authors (8)
Chengnuo Zhang
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, P. R. China
Yuan Xue
Yonghui Zheng
Key Laboratory of Polar Materials and Devices (MOE), School of Information and Electronic Engineering (School of Integrated Circuits Science and Engineering), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Guangjie Shi
Dongning Yao
Sannian Song
Zhitang Song
State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Yan Cheng
Key Laboratory of Polar Materials and Devices (MOE), School of Information and Electronic Engineering (School of Integrated Circuits Science and Engineering), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.