Rules of hierarchical melt and coordinate bond to design crystallization in doped phase change materials

Jin Zhao, Wen-Xiong Song (), Tianjiao Xin and Zhitang Song ()
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Jin Zhao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wen-Xiong Song: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tianjiao Xin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhitang Song: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract While alloy design has practically shown an efficient strategy to mediate two seemingly conflicted performances of writing speed and data retention in phase-change memory, the detailed kinetic pathway of alloy-tuned crystallization is still unclear. Here, we propose hierarchical melt and coordinate bond strategies to solve them, where the former stabilizes a medium-range crystal-like region and the latter provides a rule to stabilize amorphous. The Er0.52Sb2Te3 compound we designed achieves writing speed of 3.2 ns and ten-year data retention of 161 °C. We provide a direct atomic-level evidence that two neighbor Er atoms stabilize a medium-range crystal-like region, acting as a precursor to accelerate crystallization; meanwhile, the stabilized amorphous originates from the formation of coordinate bonds by sharing lone-pair electrons of chalcogenide atoms with the empty 5d orbitals of Er atoms. The two rules pave the way for the development of storage-class memory with comprehensive performance to achieve next technological node.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26696-9

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