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Improvement in reliability and power consumption based on Ge10Sb90 films through erbium doping

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Abstract

For the application of phase-change materials at nonvolatile memory, it is very desirable to enhance the thermal stability and decrease the power consumption. In our previous work, it has been proved that the Er doping can significantly improve the thermal stability of Sb thin film. In this work, the Er-doped Ge10Sb90 thin films were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. It is observed that the crystallization temperatures and 10-year retention temperature of Ge10Sb90 films can be significantly improved by Er doping, indicating the improvement in reliability. In addition, the resistances of amorphous and crystalline state of Er-doped Ge10Sb90 increase with increasing the Er content, revealing the decrease in writing current of phase-change device based on the film. Last but not least, the phase-change memory cells based on the Er-doped Ge10Sb90 film were fabricated and tested, which demonstrated their lower power consumption and excellent switching endurance.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by University Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. 15KJB430012), National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11547142), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK2015020024) and Changzhou Sci&Tech Program (Nos. CJ20159049, CJ20160028) and sponsored by Qing Lan Project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Physics, Jiangsu University of Technology, Changzhou, 213001, People’s Republic of China

    Hua Zou, Yifeng Hu, Xiaoqin Zhu, Yuemei Sun, Long Zheng, Yongxing Sui & Shichen Wu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, People’s Republic of China

    Zhitang Song

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  1. Hua Zou
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  2. Yifeng Hu
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  3. Xiaoqin Zhu
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Correspondence to Hua Zou or Xiaoqin Zhu.

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Zou, H., Hu, Y., Zhu, X. et al. Improvement in reliability and power consumption based on Ge10Sb90 films through erbium doping. J Mater Sci 52, 5216–5222 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-0762-x

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