Phase Change Optical Data Storage Research Articles

Rhenium doped Sb2Te phase change material with ultrahigh thermal stability and high speed

Sb2Te material is an important base material for phase change memory or optical data storage, but the poor amorphous stability of Sb2Te severely limits its application. In this work, we proposed a superhard and infusible Rhenium (Re) doped Sb2Te (RST) phase change material to improve the properties of Sb2Te. The data retention of RST was remarkably increased to 152 °C@10 years, which is much higher than those of traditional Ge2Sb2Te5 (87 °C@10 years) and Sb2Te (56 °C@10 years). The operation speed of the RST based device is as fast as 10 ns and the resistance ratio is more than 102 times. The density change of RST (4.2%) is smaller than those of Ge2Sb2Te5 (6.5%) and Sb2Te (5.7%). Furthermore, the operation voltage and power consumption of RST based device are much lower than those of Ge2Sb2Te5 and Sb2Te based devices. The results indicate that the RST is a promising material for high performance phase change memory or optical data storage applications.

The Science and Technology of Phase Change Materials

AbstractPhase Change Materials are solids which are characterized by a unique combination of properties. They exist in an amorphous and a crystalline phase with remarkably different optical and electrical properties caused by an unusual change of bonding when the amorphous phase is crystallized. It is possible to change the phase of such a material in very short times (nanoseconds) and repeatedly between the two phases which makes phase change materials ideal candidates for data storage. This paper reviews in detail the relationship between the bonding mechanisms and the resulting physical properties of phase change materials. It describes the change of bonding from ordinary covalent bonding in the amorphous phase to resonance bonding in the crystalline phase with additional disorder, resulting in unconventional physical properties of phase change materials. These properties lead to the development of phase change data storage applications. Phase change optical data storage, phase change random access memory, and emerging applications including neuromorphic computing are described with particular emphasis on material requirements and material engineering for phase change random access memory.

Optical Properties of Multi-layer Chalcogenide Thin Film for Optical Recording Media

ABSTRACTWe present the results of optical properties of multi layer thin films as in the media of phase change optical disk data storage. Reflectance and optical contrast of multi layer thin films increased rapidly between 100 °C and 150 °C. Moreover, optical contrasts at different wavelength were also studied. The refractive index and the optical band gap decreased, while the extinction coefficient increases as the crystallization occurs. The Egopt of crystalline thin film was ∼0.6 eV lower than that of amorphous thin film. Egopt decreased as the number of stacked layer increased.

Crystallization behavior of Ge-doped eutectic Sb70Te30 films in optical disks.

We report laser-induced crystallization behavior of binary Sb-Te and ternary Ge-doped eutectic Sb70Te30 thin film samples in a typical quadrilayer stack as used in phase-change optical disk data storage. Several experiments have been conducted on a two-laser static tester in which one laser operating in pulse mode writes crystalline marks on amorphous film or amorphous marks on crystalline film, while the second laser operating at low-power cw mode simultaneously monitors the progress of the crystalline or amorphous mark formation in real time in terms of the reflectivity variation. The results of this study show that the crystallization kinetics of this class of film is strongly growth dominant, which is significantly different from the crystallization kinetics of stochiometric Ge-Sb-Te compositions. In Sb-Te and Ge-doped eutectic Sb70Te30 thin-film samples, the crystallization behavior of the two forms of amorphous states, namely, as-deposited amorphous state and melt-quenched amorphous state, remains approximately same. We have also presented experiments showing the effect of the variation of the Sb/Te ratio and Ge doping on the crystallization behavior of these films.

Partial-response signaling for phase-change optical data storage without electronic equalization.

We describe the application of partial-response (PR) signaling in rewritable phase-change optical data storage. No electronic filter is necessary to shape the readout signal to a certain PR target. A PR-like waveform at the output of the read channel is directly achieved by optical recording. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize the parameters for writing and therefore to minimize the difference between the actual readout signal and the ideal PR waveform. With a laser wavelength of 0.66 microm and an objective lens with a numerical aperture of 0.6, four linear densities were examined: 0.4, 0.3, 0.25, and 0.2 microm/bit (without modulation). Results showed that the linear density of 0.25 microm/bit can be realized on a rewritable digital-versatile disk.

Thin film alloy mixtures for high speed phase change optical storage: A study on (Ge1Sb2Te4)1−x(Sn1Bi2Te4)x

An approach is proposed to develop recording materials for high speed phase change optical data storage. It utilizes a thin film alloy mixture between a stoichiometric GeSbTe alloy and an additive ternary telluride alloy. Selection rules for an additive alloy are suggested. For a test, (Ge1Sb2Te4)1−x(Sn1Bi2Te4)x thin films are deposited by co-sputtering and their structural and thermal properties are studied. Ge1Sb2Te4 and Sn1Bi2Te4 are found to form a completely soluble pseudo-binary system, whose crystalline lattice parameters obey Vegard’s rule over the entire range of x (0<x<1). Furthermore, the alloy mixtures display an increasing tendency for crystallization with Sn1Bi2Te4 content. Dynamic tests of disk samples are made to show the effectiveness of the approach for high speed erasure.

Kinetics of crystallization in a.Se80In20-xPbx under isothermal annealing: Activation energy determination

In the past few years research on phase change optical data storage media has concentrated on increasing the erase speed. The chalcogenide glasses have been the subject of extensive investigation due to their interesting properties. The most widely exploited property of chalcogenide glasses is their large infrared transmittance in combination with their chemical and mechanical durability. The most unique property of chalcogenides glasses is that they are semiconducting in the amorphous phase, and they can become highly conductive in the crystallization phase, hence the electrical switching ability. In addition, crystalline chalcogenide can be much more reflective than amorphous chalcogenides. In recent years, efforts have been made to develop chalcogenide based erasable optical storage media. Since the write and erase time is closely related to the melting temperature (Tm) and the speed of crystallization, a detailed investigation of the compositional dependence and of the effect of a small quantity of additive on crystallization is necessary [1]. There are many methods of activation energy determination from the isothermal experiments. All of them can be divided in two groups: local and global methods. Local methods use only certain points from the experimental curve obtained during isothermal annealing. In the global method, which has been presented in many papers [2, 3], a general scaling factor is used to make the experimental curves obtained for different annealing temperature collapse into a single temperature-independent curve. Another method, which is also quite convenient for crystallization measurement, because of its simplicity and accuracy of continuous measurements, is conductivity measurements [4, 5]. This method was used in our experiment. The aim of the present work is to study the isothermal crystallization kinetics by using conductivity measurements and to discuss the effect of Pb on the crystallization of a Se-In alloy. Since the conductivity of the amorphous state is much lower than that of the crystalline state, the electrical measurements are expected to be sensitive to phase changes in these materials [6]. The selection of Se is because of its wide commercial applications. Its device applications like switching, memory and xerography, etc., made it attractive. It also exhibits [7] a unique property of reversible transformation. This property makes very useful in optical memory devices. But in the pure state it has disadvantages because of its short lifetime and low sensi-

Characterization of Ge–Sb–Te thin films deposited using a composition-spread approach

Ge–Sb–Te Thin films for rewritable phase change optical data storage applications were deposited by magnetron sputtering using a composition-spread approach. The deposition took place in an UHV chamber by cosputtering of three magnetron cathodes equipped with pure Ge-, Sb- and Te-targets in a DC–argon plasma. To investigate the influence of the chemical composition of the phase change material on its optical properties, films with lateral compositional gradients of up to 30 at.% were deposited. The composition, binding states and structure of the films were investigated by EPMA mappings, XPS, AES, RHEED and GIXRD on plain Si wafers, whereas the phase change velocity of Ge–Sb–Te was determined on Si–Al–SiO 2 stacks. The change between amorphous and crystalline phases of the films was induced and characterized with a static tester consisting of an optical microscope with an integrated high power laser diode. The change in reflectivity induced by the laser pulses was measured by a high sensitivity photo detector. Depending on the composition, the duration for the initial crystallization was determined between 220 and 500 ns, while the re-amorphization required between 20 and 120 ns. Structural analyses proved the existence of two crystalline phases with cubic and hexagonal structure in the initialized films.

Superresolution near-field readout in phase-change optical disk data storage

Readout of a phase-change optical disk with a superresolution (SR) near-field structure (Super-RENS) is theoretically examined on the basis of three-dimensional, full-wave vector diffraction theory. Calculations have demonstrated that Super-RENS has a high spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit in readout. The read signal is dependent on the nature of SR, the layer structure of the disk, and the state of polarization of the incident laser beam. For the Super-RENS in which antimony is used for SR readout, the readout signal is quite small, and the estimated carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) is only ~30 dB for marks of 300 nm. For the Super-RENS in which a metallic region is formed during readout, the read signal is large, and the CNR can be as high as 50 dB in reading 300-nm marks.

A Novel Approach to Obtain GeSbTe-Based High Speed Crystallizing Materials for Phase Change Optical Recording

ABSTRACTA new approach is proposed to obtain fast crystallizing materials based on a conventional GeSbTe alloy for rewritable phase change optical data storage. By means of co-sputtering, Ge1Sb2Te4alloy was mixed with Sn1Bi2Te4alloy so as to form pseudo-binary alloys (Ge1Sb2Te4)1-x(Sn1Bi2Te4)x (x is a mole fraction). From structural and optical analyses of the co- sputtered and annealed alloy films, the formation of stable crystalline single phases was observed along with a Vegard's law behavior, suggesting a homogeneous mixing of the two alloys. By use of a 4 layered disk with (Ge1Sb2Te4)0.85(Sn1Bi2Te4)0.15 recording layer, a preliminary test of writing and erasing was carried out and the results were compared with the case of the disk with Ge1Sb2Te4recording layer. The (Ge1Sb2Te4)0.85(Sn1Bi2Te4)0.15 recording layer was found to yield markedly higher erasibility, especially with increasing disk linear velocity.

Thermal cross-track cross talk in phase-change optical disk data storage

We have investigated the temperature distribution in land/groove phase-change optical disks. The incident beam is linearly polarized either parallel to track (E∥ polarization) or tangential to track (E⊥ polarization). Calculations have shown that temperature profiles in the medium are dependent on the wavelength of light, the state of polarization, the geometry of the grooved structure, and the multilayer stack. The temperature profiles are quite different between the land track and the groove track. Thermal cross-track cross talk from a land track to its neighboring groove tracks is higher than that from a groove track to its neighboring land tracks. The interaction between the E⊥ electric field and the grooved structure is mainly responsible for thermal cross-track cross talk.

Crystallization and amorphization studies of a Ge_2Sb_23Te_5 thin-film sample under pulsed laser irradiation

We present the results of crystallization and amorphization studies on a thin-film sample of Ge(2)Sb(2.3)Te(5), encapsulated in a quadrilayer stack as in the media of phase-change optical disk data storage. The study was conducted on a two-laser static tester in which one laser, operating in pulsed mode, writes either amorphous marks on a crystalline film or crystalline marks on an amorphous film. The second laser, operating at low power in the cw mode, simultaneously monitors the progress of mark formation in terms of the variations of reflectivity both during the write pulse and in the subsequent cooling period. In addition to investigating some of the expected features associated with crystallization and amorphization, we noted certain curious phenomena during the mark-formation process. For example, at low-power pulsed illumination, which is insufficient to trigger the phase transition, there is a slight change in the reflectivity of the sample. This is believed to be caused by a reversible change in the complex refractive index of the Ge(2)Sb(2.3)Te(5) film in the course of heating above the ambient temperature. We also observed that the mark-formation process may continue for as long as 1 mus beyond the end of the write laser pulse. This effect is especially pronounced during amorphous mark formation under high-power, long-pulse illumination.

Evaluation of partial-response maximum-likelihood detection for phase-change optical data storage

We describe the application of partial-response (PR) maximum-likelihood (ML) detection in rewritable phase-change optical data storage. The input to this detector, which is simulated in software, is the actual signal (without any equalization), reproduced from reading of the recorded sequence on an optical disk. The detection algorithm involves the extraction of the impulse response from the readout signal, PR equalization, the adjustment of gain and recovery of clock, ML sequence estimation with the Viterbi algorithm, and analysis of PRML performance. With a laser wavelength of 0.69 microm and an objective lens with a numerical aperture of 0.6, three linear densities are examined: 0.35 and 0.31 microm/bit without modulation code and 0.2 microm/bit with the (1, 7) modulation code. The equalized signal exhibits good eye patterns, especially at the densities of 0.35 and 0.31 microm/bit. Analyses of noise and bit-error rate indicate that jitter, rather than noise, is the main obstacle to realizing ultrahigh density in phase-change media with PRML detection. We also briefly discuss the problem of the inherent nonlinear effect in phase-change readout.

Edge detection readout signal and cross talk in phase-change optical data storage

Readout signal, noise, and cross-track cross talk were investigated for edge detection in a phase-change optical data storage system. Both theoretical and experimental results indicate that edge detection has a performance superior to the conventional detection of reflectance variations, especially when the amorphous marks are shorter than the size of the focused spot. More than 50 dB of carrier to noise ratio for marks of 0.36 μm in length is obtained using light at a wavelength of 690 nm and an objective lens of 0.6 numerical aperture. Diffraction analysis on the cross talk has shown that, in the scheme of land-groove recording, there is no optimum groove depth which can cancel the cross talk from adjacent tracks.

Short-wavelength phase-change optical data storage in In-Sb-Te alloy films

Physical properties of In-Sb-Te thin films prepared by D.C. magnetron sputtering method are studied. X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results indicate that the crystallization temperature and the activation energy of In 47Sb 14Te 39 thin films are about 300°C and 2.9 eV, respectively. The crystallization compounds of In 47Sb 14Te 39 thin films mainly consist of In 3SbTe 2 with small amounts of InTe and In 2Te 3. Optical recording test of the films clearly shows that larger reflectivity contrast can be obtained by lower power argon laser (514.5 nm) irradiation. These results demonstrate that the ternary composition film is a promising candidate for short-wavelength direct overwritable phase-change optical data storage.

Copper vanadates as candidate materials for phase change optical memory

Several copper vanadium oxide melts were tested for possible application as the active medium in phase-change optical data storage devices. These materials were melted in the bulk and then quenched. Their phase development was characterized to help determine their applicability to optical data storage. It was found that they satisfy many of the criteria necessary for successful phase-change data storage; further studies of their behavior in thin film geometry would be warranted.

The Microstructural Response of a Multilayer Thin Film to Local Laser Heating

ABSTRACTThe microstructures associated with pulsed-laser heating of multilayer thin films used for phase-change optical data storage are studied in three related films. Two employ the multilayer structure SiOx/TeGeSn/SiOx where the chalcogenide layer is either amorphous or crystalline. The third uses the same trilayer structure with a crystalline chalcogenide layer but with an additional layer of aluminum. Pulsed-laser melting of micron-sized spots leads to solidification in the non-aluminized specimens with a morphology dependent on the preexisting structure of the chalcogenide layer and to amorphization in the aluminized film. Heat-flow modelling shows that the maximum temperature reached is lower and the cooling rate through the glass-forming temperature range higher in the aluminized structure. Discussion centers on the thermal and optical properties of the different films and the impact of the pre-existing chalcogenide structure on the subsequent phase transformations.

Reversible phase-change optical data storage in InSbTe alloy films

Some characteristics of reversible phase-change optical data storage based on an amorphous-crystalline transformation in InSbTe alloys are given. The reversible phase change was observed in a wide region of composition. The laser amorphized spot of a ternary compound In3SbTe2 film could be crystallized using a diode laser pulse of less than 100 ns with an incident laser power of more than 10 mW. The crystallization temperature of the amorphized spot was 280 °C and the activation energy was about 1.8 eV which shows that long-term data retention at room temperature is possible. The repetition number of static write and erase using the pulse of 50 ns reached above 105. These data show that the ternary compound film has potential for reversible optical data storage media with high-speed erasing and long-term data retention.