Characterization of electrical contacts for phase change memory cells

摘要

Advancements in integrated circuits demand an increasing requirement foruda faster, low-cost non-volatile memory with improved scaling potential. Phaseudchange memory is an important emerging memory technology qualifying theseudrequirements. With dimensional scaling, the contacts are scaled by F2, thereforeudknowledge of the contact properties becomes even more important. This thesisuddeals with the characterization of electrical contacts for phase change memoryudcells. An electrical contact in this respect refers to the interfaces formed in theudmemory cell, i.e. the metal electrode to phase change material (PCM) contactsudin the crystalline and in the amorphous state.