Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Electric-field Control of Electronic States in WS2 Nanodevices by Electrolyte Gating
Published on: April 12, 2018
Morphology and Electric Conductance Change Induced by Voltage Pulse Excitation in (GeTe)2/Sb2Te3 Superlattices
Leonid Bolotov1, Yuta Saito1, Tetsuya Tada1
1Nanoelectronics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science &Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8565, Japan.
Abstract:
Chalcogenide superlattice (SL) phase-change memory materials are leading candidates for non-volatile, energy-efficient electric memory where the electric conductance switching is caused by the atom repositioning in the constituent layers. Here, we study the time evolution of the electric conductance in [(GeTe)2/(Sb2Te3)1]4 SLs upon the application of an external pulsed electric field by analysing the structural and electrical responses of the SL films with scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and scanning probe lithography (SPL). At a low pulse voltage (1.6-2.3 V), a conductance switching delay of a few seconds was observed in some SL areas, where the switch to the high conductance state (HCS) is accompanied with an SL expansion under the strong electric field of the SPM probe. At a high pulse voltage (2.5-3.0 V), the HCS current was unstable and decayed in a few seconds; this is ascribed to the degradation of the HCS crystal phase under excessive heating. The reversible conductance change under a pulse voltage of opposite polarity emphasised the role of the electric field in the phase-transition mechanism.
Related Concept Videos
Electrostatic Boundary Conditions in Dielectrics
Consider a case where both the mediums across a boundary are two different dielectric materials. Recall that the electric field and electric displacement are proportional and related through the material's permittivity....
Trends in Lattice Energy: Ion Size and Charge
Electric Field at the Surface of a Conductor
In the 19th century, Michael Faraday conducted the famous ice pail experiment to prove that the charges always reside on the surface of a conductor. The experimental set-up consists of a conducting uncharged container mounted on an insulating stand. The outer surface of the container is...
The Electrical Double Layer

