The role of arsenic in the operation of sulfur-based electrical threshold switches

Renjie Wu, Rongchuan Gu, Tamihiro Gotoh, Zihao Zhao, Yuting Sun, Shujing Jia, Xiangshui Miao, Stephen R. Elliott, Min Zhu (), Ming Xu () and Zhitang Song ()
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Renjie Wu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Rongchuan Gu: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Tamihiro Gotoh: Gunma University
Zihao Zhao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yuting Sun: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shujing Jia: Fudan University
Xiangshui Miao: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Stephen R. Elliott: University of Cambridge
Min Zhu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ming Xu: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Zhitang Song: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Arsenic is an essential dopant in conventional silicon-based semiconductors and emerging phase-change memory (PCM), yet the detailed functional mechanism is still lacking in the latter. Here, we fabricate chalcogenide-based ovonic threshold switching (OTS) selectors, which are key units for suppressing sneak currents in 3D PCM arrays, with various As concentrations. We discovered that incorporation of As into GeS brings >100 °C increase in crystallization temperature, remarkably improving the switching repeatability and prolonging the device lifetime. These benefits arise from strengthened As-S bonds and sluggish atomic migration after As incorporation, which reduces the leakage current by more than an order of magnitude and significantly suppresses the operational voltage drift, ultimately enabling a back-end-of-line-compatible OTS selector with >12 MA/cm2 on-current, ~10 ns speed, and a lifetime approaching 1010 cycles after 450 °C annealing. These findings allow the precise performance control of GeSAs-based OTS materials for high-density 3D PCM applications.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41643-6

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