GeTe ultrathin film based phase-change memory with extreme thermal stability, fast SET speed, and low RESET power energy
Yingjie Meng,
Yimin Chen,
Kexin Peng,
Bin Chen,
Chenjie Gu,
Yixiao Gao,
Guoxiang Wang,
Xiang Shen
Affiliations
Yingjie Meng
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Yimin Chen
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Kexin Peng
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Bin Chen
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Chenjie Gu
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Yixiao Gao
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Guoxiang Wang
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Xiang Shen
Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices & Key Laboratory of Photoelectric Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Advanced Technology Research Institute, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
We designed the phase-change memory (PCM) cell based on ultrathin GeTe film (∼10 nm) and homemade nanoscale electrode filling craft to improve data retention ability and reduce programming energy, respectively. It was found that the temperature for ten years’ data retention of this ultrathin GeTe film is 160 ± 32.8 °C, which is much higher than that of conventional Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST, 83 ± 20.6 °C) film. Benefit to the nature of fragile-to-strong crossover behavior in GeTe supercooled liquids that was confined in a two-dimension structure, a fast SET speed of 6 ns is also detected in this ultrathin GeTe PCM. Moreover, the RESET power consumption of this ultrathin GeTe PCM is measured as 1.8 ± 0.5 nJ, and it is much lower than that of GST PCM (16.5 ± 1.5 nJ), which is attributed to the nanoscale electrode of the devices. The above-mentioned improvements enable the application of ultrathin GeTe PCM in neuromorphic computing.
