TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jiang, Ting-Ting
AU  - Wang, Jiang-Jing
AU  - Lu, Lu
AU  - Ma, Chuan-Sheng
AU  - Zhang, Dan-Li
AU  - Rao, Feng
AU  - Jia, Chun-Lin
AU  - Zhang, Wei
TI  - Progressive amorphization of GeSbTe phase-change material under electron beam irradiation
JO  - APL materials
VL  - 7
IS  - 8
SN  - 2166-532X
CY  - Melville, NY
PB  - AIP Publ.
M1  - FZJ-2020-02711
SP  - 081121 -
PY  - 2019
AB  - Fast and reversible phase transitions in chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs), in particular, Ge-Sb-Te compounds, are not only of fundamental interests but also make PCMs based random access memory a leading candidate for nonvolatile memory and neuromorphic computing devices. To RESET the memory cell, crystalline Ge-Sb-Te has to undergo phase transitions first to a liquid state and then to an amorphous state, corresponding to an abrupt change in electrical resistance. In this work, we demonstrate a progressive amorphization process in GeSb2Te4 thin films under electron beam irradiation on a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Melting is shown to be completely absent by the in situ TEM experiments. The progressive amorphization process resembles closely the cumulative crystallization process that accompanies a continuous change in electrical resistance. Our work suggests that if displacement forces can be implemented properly, it should be possible to emulate symmetric neuronal dynamics by using PCMs.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000483883800009
DO  - DOI:10.1063/1.5102075
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/878242
ER  -