Characterization of Ge ions implantation in Sb2Te3 thin films for high speed phase change memory application

Abstract

Ge ion implantation is adopted for doping of Sb2Te3 thin films and modifying the amorphous to crystal transition kinetics. The crystallization temperatures, crystallization activation energies of crystallization, and thermal stability improve with the Ge dose increasing from 5 × 1015 to 3.0 × 1016 Ge-ions/cm2. In the case of 1.0 × 1016 Ge-ions/cm2 dose, GexSb2Te3 phase change material exhibits a higher crystallization temperature (∼180 °C), a larger crystallization activation energy (∼3.7 eV), and a better data retention ability (∼102 °C for 10 years) in comparison with Ge2Sb2Te5. A reversible switching between Set and Reset can be realized by an electric pulse width as short as 10 ns for GexSb2Te3 based phase change memory.