Growth and device study of chalcogenide optical phase change material

Abstract

In the last few years chalcogenide (which have at least one chalcogen element acting as an anion) phase change materials like Germanium Antimony Tellurides (Ge-Sb-Te) are considered as next group nonvolatilizable memory tool technology. This material has excellent and distinct electrical and optical properties which are appropriate for nonvolatile memory device technology. ☐ Both the optical and electrical properties of the phase change material (GeSbTe) at amorphous and crystalline phases are completely different. ☐ Nonvolatile memory is the type of memory which can store data even when the power is switched off. We will be talking a little about the fabrication process of chalcogenide phase change material (Ge-Sb-Te) by Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) thermal evaporator technique at room temperature and the rapid phase change from amorphous to crystalline with the increase in temperature around 1700C. We also discuss surface characterization techniques to show the phase transformation of the material. Moreover, we will discuss in detail the device fabrication of integrated micro heater on Si substrate to study the phase change characteristics of the Ge-Sb-Te material. We will be measuring the change in resistivity of the devices at room temperature and higher temperature to study the phase transition along with other characterization techniques.