Crystallization of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 phase-change optical disk media

Abstract

In this paper, the crystallization behaviour of amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films is investigated using differential scanning calorimetry), x-ray diffraction and optical transmissivity measurements. It is indicated that only the amorphous phase to face-centred-cubic phase transformation occurs during laser annealing of the normal phase-change structure, which is a benefit for raising the phase-change optical disk's carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR). For amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films, the crystallization temperature is about 200°C and the melting temperature is 546.87°C. The activation energy for the crystallization, Ea, is 2.25eV. The crystallization dynamics for Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films obeys the law of nucleation and growth reaction. The sputtered Ge2Sb2Te5 films were initialized by an initializer unit. The initialization conditions have a great effect on the reflectivity contrast of the Ge2Sb2Te5 phase-change optical disk.