TY - JOUR AU - Akola, Jaakko AU - Jones, R. O. TI - Speeding up crystallization JO - Science VL - 358 IS - 6369 SN - 1095-9203 CY - Washington, DC [u.a.] PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science64196 M1 - FZJ-2017-08479 SP - 1386 - 1386 PY - 2017 AB - Phase-change materials (PCMs) form the basis of many modern optical-storage media (such as DVDs) and promise to yield faster, more stable random-access memory (RAM) devices for computers. All of these devices are based on the fast and reversible crystallization of amorphous bits in thin polycrystalline alloy layers, with crystallization being the time-limiting stage. Optimization of the alloy composition for faster crystallization is a major challenge in speeding up this process. On page 1423 of this issue, Rao et al. (1) take full advantage of atomic-level knowledge of the structure and crystallization properties of PCMs from simulations to develop a new alloy with greatly reduced nucleation times and demonstrate subnanosecond crystallization in a PCM device based on this alloy. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 C6 - pmid:29242333 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000417918500021 DO - DOI:10.1126/science.aaq0476 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/841404 ER -