Y-Doped Sb2Te3 Phase-Change Materials: Toward a Universal Memory

Bin Liu; Wanliang Liu; Zhen Li; Kaiqi Li; Liangcai Wu; Jian Zhou; Zhitang Song; Zhimei Sun

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c03027

Y-Doped Sb₂Te₃ Phase-Change Materials: Toward a Universal Memory

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 May 6;12(18):20672-20679. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c03027. Epub 2020 Apr 23.

Authors

Bin Liu¹, Wanliang Liu², Zhen Li¹, Kaiqi Li¹, Liangcai Wu², Jian Zhou¹, Zhitang Song², Zhimei Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering and Center for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China.

PMID: 32283921
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c03027

Abstract

The disadvantages of high power consumption and slow operating speed hinder the application of phase-change materials (PCMs) for a universal memory. In this work, based on a rigorous experimental scheme, we synthesized a series of Y_xSb_2-xTe₃ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.333) PCMs and demonstrated that Y_0.25Sb_1.75Te₃ (YST) is an excellent candidate material for the universal phase-change memory. This YST PCM, even being integrated into a conventional T-shaped device, exhibits an ultralow reset power consumption of 1.3 pJ and a competitive fast set speed of 6 ns. The ultralow power consumption is attributed to the Y-reduced thermal and electrical conductivity, while the maintained crystal structure of Sb₂Te₃ and the grain refinement provide the competitive fast crystallization speed. This work highlights a novel way to obtain new PCMs with lower power consumption and competitive fast speed toward a universal memory.

Keywords: hydrothermal synthesis; phase-change materials; phase-change memory; ultralow power consumption; universal memory.