Volume 1 Issue 4
December  2022
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Jiangjing Wang, Xiaozhe Wang, Yudong Cheng, Jieling Tan, Chao Nie, Zhe Yang, Ming Xu, Xiangshui Miao, Wei Zhang, En Ma. Tailoring the oxygen concentration in Ge-Sb-O alloys to enable femtojoule-level phase-change memory operations[J]. Materials Futures, 2022, 1(4): 045302. doi: 10.1088/2752-5724/aca07b
Citation: Jiangjing Wang, Xiaozhe Wang, Yudong Cheng, Jieling Tan, Chao Nie, Zhe Yang, Ming Xu, Xiangshui Miao, Wei Zhang, En Ma. Tailoring the oxygen concentration in Ge-Sb-O alloys to enable femtojoule-level phase-change memory operations[J]. Materials Futures, 2022, 1(4): 045302. doi: 10.1088/2752-5724/aca07b
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Tailoring the oxygen concentration in Ge-Sb-O alloys to enable femtojoule-level phase-change memory operations

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory
Materials Futures, Volume 1, Number 4
  • Received Date: 2022-10-07
  • Accepted Date: 2022-11-04
  • Publish Date: 2022-11-17
  • Chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs), in particular, the flagship Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST), are leading candidates for advanced memory applications. Yet, GST in conventional devices suffer from high power consumption, because the RESET operation requires melting of the crystalline GST phase. Recently, we have developed a conductive-bridge scheme for low-power phase-change application utilizing a self-decomposed Ge-Sb-O (GSO) alloy. In this work, we present thorough structural and electrical characterizations of GSO thin films by tailoring the concentration of oxygen in the phase-separating GSO system. We elucidate a two-step process in the as-deposited amorphous film upon the introduction of oxygen: with increasing oxygen doping level, germanium oxides form first, followed by antimony oxides. To enable the conductive-bridge switching mode for femtojoule-level RESET energy, the oxygen content should be sufficiently low to keep the antimony-rich domains easily crystallized under external electrical stimulus. Our work serves as a useful example to exploit alloy decomposition that develops heterogeneous PCMs, minimizing the active switching volume for low-power electronics.

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