Structural Transitions in Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ Phase Change Memory Thin Films Induced by Nanosecond UV Optical Pulses

Ge-Sb-Te-based phase change memory alloys have recently attracted a lot of attention due to their promising applications in the fields of photonics, non-volatile data storage, and neuromorphic computing. Of particular interest is the understanding of the structural changes and underlying mechanisms induced by short optical pulses. This work reports on structural changes induced by single nanosecond UV laser pulses in amorphous and epitaxial Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) thin films. The phase changes within the thin films are studied by a combined approach using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The results reveal different phase transitions such as crystalline-to-amorphous phase changes, interface assisted crystallization of the cubic GST phase and structural transformations within crystalline phases. In particular, it is found that crystalline interfaces serve as crystallization templates for epitaxial formation of metastable cubic GST phase upon phase transitions. By varying the laser fluence, GST thin films consisting of multiple phases and different amorphous to crystalline volume ratios can be achieved in this approach, offering a possibility of multilevel data storage and realization of memory devices with very low resistance drift. In addition, this work demonstrates amorphization and crystallization of GST thin films by using only one UV laser with one single pulse duration and one wavelength. Overall, the presented results offer new perspectives on switching pathways in Ge-Sb-Te-based materials and show the potential of epitaxial Ge-Sb-Te thin films for applications in advanced phase change memory concepts.