Role of Electronic Excitation in the Amorphization of Ge-Sb-Te Alloys

Xian-Bin Li, X. Q. Liu, Xin Liu, Dong Han, Z. Zhang, X. D. Han, Hong-Bo Sun, and S. B. Zhang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 015501 – Published 29 June 2011

Abstract

First-principles molecular dynamics simulation reveals the effects of electronic excitation in the amorphization of Ge-Sb-Te. The excitation makes the phase change an element-selective process, lowers the critical amorphization temperature considerably, for example, to below 700 K at a 9% excitation, and reduces the atomic diffusion coefficient with respect to that of melt by at least 1 order of magnitude. Noticeably, the resulting structure has fewer wrong bonds and significantly increased phase-change reversibility. Our results point to a new direction in manipulating ultrafast phase-change processes with improved controllability.

Received 13 September 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.015501

Authors & Affiliations

Xian-Bin Li¹, X. Q. Liu², Xin Liu^3,4, Dong Han¹, Z. Zhang^2,5, X. D. Han^2,*, Hong-Bo Sun¹, and S. B. Zhang^1,3,†

¹State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China
²Institute of Microstructure and Property of Advanced Materials, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, China
³Department of Physics, Applied Physics, & Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
⁴School of Chemistry, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
⁵State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China