Abstract
The use of phase‐change materials for a range of exciting new optoelectronic applications from artificial retinas to ultrahigh‐resolution displays requires a thorough understanding of how these materials perform under a combination of optical and electrical stimuli. This study reports for the first time the complex link between the electronic and optical properties in real‐world crossbar nanoscale devices constructed by confining a thin layer of Ge2Sb2Te5 between transparent indium tin oxide electrodes, forming an optical nanocavity. A novel proof‐of‐concept device that can be operated by a combination of optical and electrical stimuli is presented, leading the way for the development of further applications based on mixed‐mode electro‐optical operation.
Highlights
The use of phase-change materials for a range of exciting new optoelectronic trical properties of phase-change mateapplications from artificial retinas to ultrahigh-resolution displays requires rials simultaneously, and the possibility a thorough understanding of how these materials perform under a combination of optical and electrical stimuli
This study reports for the first time the complex link between the electronic and optical properties in real-world crossbar nanoscale devices constructed by confining a thin layer of Ge2Sb2Te5 of modulating optical effects using electrical excitations, has only very recently opened up new application fields, such as low-power, nonvolatile, phase-change nanodisplays.[7,8,9]
A novel proof-of-concept device that can be operated by a combination of optical and electrical stimuli is presented, leading the way for the development of further applications based on mixed-mode electro-optical operation
Summary
Both measurements evolve differently suggests that the crystallization of the GST within the device may not be occurring homogeneously. This remarkable optoelectronic response is a consequence of the optical resonance characteristics of the optical nanocavity formed by the crossbar cell, along with the fact that, for the particular optical excitation pulses used here, the cell “oscillates” between regions (I) and (II) due to a process of partial crystallization and partial reamorphization induced by successive excitations in tandem with the change in absorbance of GST between amorphous and crystalline states[24] (this can be inferred from the observation that the partial reamorphization takes place only after sufficient crystallization has occurred—see Figure 3a, region A) Up to this point, we have shown that a correspondence exists between resistance and reflectance when either optical or electrical excitation pulses are applied and that such correspondence depends on the degree of partial crystallization. Such applications include optoelectronic interfaces for integrated photonic circuits,[26,27] in addition to potential new technologies like accumulative optical pulse detectors or synthetic retinas
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