Nitrogen-doped Ge_3Te_2 materials with self-restricted active region for low - power phase-change memory

摘要

In this paper, nitrogen-doped Ge_3Te_2 materials have been investigated for low power phase-change memory. Nitrogen incorporated in Ge_3Te_2 increases the crystallization temperature, electrical resistance, and band gap significantly. The introduced GeN_x pile up at the grain-boundaries and suppress the crystal growth of Ge_3Te_2, which further leads to larger crystalline resistance and smaller active region. 10-year data retention of nitrogen-doped Ge_3Te_2 film reaches a peak value with a N_2 flow of 2 sccm, while it decreases sharply as the N_2 flow reaches 3 sccm. This is due to the formation of inhomogeneous nucleation sites at the GeN_x-GeTe interface. Phase-change memory device based on nitrogen-doped Ge_3Te_2 film shows much lower RESET power consumption than that of pure Ge_3Te_2. It's considered that the self-restricted active region and effect of GeN_x microheaters play an important role in cutting down the power consumption.