High thermal stable and fast switching Ni-Ge-Te alloy for phase change memory applications

Abstract

Ni-Ge-Te phase change material is proposed and investigated for phase change memory (PCM) applications. With Ni addition, the crystallization temperature, the data retention ability, and the crystallization speed are remarkably improved. The Ni-Ge-Te material has a high crystallization temperature (250 °C) and good data retention ability (149 °C). A reversible switching between SET and RESET state can be achieved by an electrical pulse as short as 6 ns. Up to ∼3 × 104 SET/RESET cycles are obtained with a resistance ratio of about two orders of magnitude. All of these demonstrate that Ni-Ge-Te alloy is a promising material for high speed and high temperature PCM applications.