Multilayer SnSb4-SbSe Thin Films for Phase Change Materials Possessing Ultrafast Phase Change Speed and Enhanced Stability

Ruirui Liu; Xiao Zhou; Jiwei Zhai; Jun Song; Pengzhi Wu; Tianshu Lai; Sannian Song; Zhitang Song

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b06533

Multilayer SnSb₄-SbSe Thin Films for Phase Change Materials Possessing Ultrafast Phase Change Speed and Enhanced Stability

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Aug 16;9(32):27004-27013. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b06533. Epub 2017 Aug 1.

Authors

Ruirui Liu^{1

2}, Xiao Zhou², Jiwei Zhai¹, Jun Song², Pengzhi Wu³, Tianshu Lai³, Sannian Song⁴, Zhitang Song⁴

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Key Laboratory for R&D and Application of Metallic Functional Materials, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Tongji University , Shanghai 201804, China.
² Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University , Montreal, Quebec H3A 0C5, Canada.
³ Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University , Guangzhou 510275, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, China.

PMID: 28737032
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b06533

Abstract

A multilayer thin film, comprising two different phase change material (PCM) components alternatively deposited, provides an effective means to tune and leverage good properties of its components, promising a new route toward high-performance PCMs. The present study systematically investigated the SnSb₄-SbSe multilayer thin film as a potential PCM, combining experiments and first-principles calculations, and demonstrated that these multilayer thin films exhibit good electrical resistivity, robust thermal stability, and superior phase change speed. In particular, the potential operating temperature for 10 years is shown to be 122.0 °C and the phase change speed reaches 5 ns in the device test. The good thermal stability of the multilayer thin film is shown to come from the formation of the Sb₂Se₃ phase, whereas the fast phase change speed can be attributed to the formation of vacancies and a SbSe metastable phase. It is also demonstrated that the SbSe metastable phase contributes to further enhancing the electrical resistivity of the crystalline state and the thermal stability of the amorphous state, being vital to determining the properties of the multilayer SnSb₄-SbSe thin film.

Keywords: electrical resistivity; fast phase change speed; metastable phase; phase change material; thermal stability.