Switching effect properties on Sn-doped Sb70Te30 thin films

BILOVOL, V.; MARIA ANDREA UREÑA; ROCCA, J.; FONTANA, M.

Chisinau

Conferencia; 9th International Conference on Amorphous and Nanostructured Chalcogenides (ANC 9); 2019

Ge-Sb-Te phase-change materials in compositions close to Ge2Sb2Te5 and doped with Sn have been proposed to improve performance of phase-change memories (PCM) [1]. In a previous work we found that Sb70Te30 thin films show a sharp fall in the electrical resistance in a narrow temperature range when heating [2]. Thus, in this work we studied the effect of the addition of tin to this composition.Undoped and tin doped thin films (Snx[Sb0.70Te0.30]100-x, with x = 0, 2.5, 5 and 7.5 at. %) were obtained by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using a Nd:YAG laser (λ = 355 nm). Their electrical resistance was measured in a two-probes configuration while heating from room temperature to 650 K, at rates below 5 K/min. A sharp fall in the electrical resistance is detected within a narrow temperature range in all the samples. Both as-obtained and thermally-treated films were structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) using Kα(Cu) radiation and Mössbauer spectroscopy. We compare results for these compositions in terms of identified crystallization products, transformation onset temperatures, transformation temperature ranges and amorphous/crystallized electrical resistance ratio.