SWITCHING EFFECT OF Ge2Sb2Te5 AND ITS APPLICATION IN MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Thin films of materials based on chalcogenide semiconductor Ge-Sb-Te (GST) system are currently intensively studied due to their successful applications in devices of phase change memory (PCM). Such materials are particularly used in optical rewritable disks with different formats (DVD-RW, BluRay) and nonvolatile memory cells of PCRAM (Phase Change Random Access Memory) type. The work of such devices is based on rapid reversible phase transitions “amorphous ↔ crystalline state”, which take place in nanovolume of material under low-energy external influences: a laser beam or an electric impulse. These phase transitions are accompanied by abrupt changes in optical and electrical properties of the materials. Despite the relatively simple phenomenology of the phenomenon, the microscopic nature of phase transitions "amorphous ↔ crystalline state" in GST thin films under external influences is now a subject of discussions.