Direct Evidence for Structural Transformation and Higher Thermal Stability of Amorphous InSbTe Phase Change Material

Abstract

The search for novel phase-change materials with enhanced electrical and thermal properties are utmost importance for the development of reliable next-generation high-speed, non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM). In this paper, we investigate local structural change and crystallization kinetics of ternary InSbTe thin films using temperature-dependent resistivity measurement and in situ X-ray diffraction by synchrotron radiation source. Our experimental results reveal that crystallization of InSbTe begins with the formation of binary phases (InSb and InTe). Furthermore, cubic In3SbTe2 phase is emerged at 300 °C and remains stable up to 410 °C. The calculated values of texture coefficient indicate an increased orientation of In3SbTe2 phase upon increasing the temperature. Also, higher activation energy of 5.2-5.6 eV for crystallization is observed using Kissinger’s method. These enhanced electrical, thermal and structural properties of InSbTe thin films would be suitable for high-speed NVRAMs as well as multi-bit data storage applications.