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The tunable disorder of vacancies upon annealing is an important character of crystalline phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST). A variety of resistance states caused by different degrees of disorder can lead to the development of multilevel memory devices, which could bring a revolution to the memory industry by significantly increasing the storage density and inspiring the neuromorphic computing. This work focuses on the study of disorder-induced carrier localization which could result in multiple resistance levels of crystalline GST. To analyze the effect of carrier localization on multiple resistant levels, the intrinsic field effect (the change in surface conductance with an applied transverse electric field) of crystalline GST was measured, in which GST films were annealed at different temperatures. The field effect measurement is an important complement to conventional transport measurement techniques. The field effect mobility was acquired and showed temperature activation, a hallmark of carrier localization. Based on the relationship between field effect mobility and annealing temperature, we demonstrate that the annealing shifts the mobility edge towards the valence-band edge, delocalizing more carriers. The insight of carrier transport in multilevel crystalline states is of fundamental relevance for the development of multilevel phase change data storage.

The forming-free resistive switching (RS) and conducting mechanism of Ag-diffused BiTe chalcogenide thin film has been investigated. The mutual diffusion of Ag, Bi and Te elements at the interface is proved to suppress the crystallization of the as-deposited BiTe film. The amorphization of BiTe and the Schottky barrier between Ag and BiTe contribute to high resistance state (HRS) of the switching devices. When switched to low resistance state (LRS), the coexistence of metallic conduction and variable-range hopping is found to be the dominant conduction mechanism. The temperature dependence of LRS exhibits an interesting transport behavior, so that a positive temperature coefficient becomes a negative one at 24 K. Our results help to further understand the conduction mechanism and promote the design for future nonvolatile memory applications.

The tunable disorder of vacancies upon annealing is an important character of crystalline phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST). A variety of resistance states caused by different degrees of disorder can lead to the development of multilevel memory devices, which could bring a revolution to the memory industry by significantly increasing the storage density and inspiring the neuromorphic computing. This work focuses on the study of disorder-induced carrier localization which could result in multiple resistance levels of crystalline GST. To analyze the effect of carrier localization on multiple resistant levels, the intrinsic field effect (the change in surface conductance with an applied transverse electric field) of crystalline GST was measured, in which GST films were annealed at different temperatures. The field effect measurement is an important complement to conventional transport measurement techniques. The field effect mobility was acquired and showed temperature activation, a hallmark of carrier localization. Based on the relationship between field effect mobility and annealing temperature, we demonstrate that the annealing shifts the mobility edge towards the valence-band edge, delocalizing more carriers. The insight of carrier transport in multilevel crystalline states is of fundamental relevance for the development of multilevel phase change data storage.

A reflective-type display device based on phase change materials is attractive because of its ultrafast response time and high resolution compared with a conventional display device. This paper proposes and demonstrates a unique display device in which multicolour changing can be achieved on a single device by the selective crystallization of double layer phase change materials. The optical contrast is optimized by the availability of a variety of film thicknesses of two phase change layers. The device exhibits a low sensitivity to the angle of incidence, which is important for display and colour consistency. The non-binary colour rendering on a single device is demonstrated for the first time using optical excitation. The device shows the potential for ultrafast display applications.

Spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) has been investigated in Ta/CoFe2O4 nanostructures grown on different substrates. Spin currents in CoFe2O4 films are electrically detected in adjacent Ta layers owing to inverse spin Hall effects. The sign of the magnetic-field-dependent resistivity signal shows different polarities along different axes, showing different spin-dependent electron transports. A cosinelike curve of the angular dependence signal with opposite polarity is observed in two orthogonal magnetization planes, whereas a basic line is observed in another plane, revealing the spin accumulation phenomenon. The roughness of the CoFe2O4 surface tuned by substrate strains is responsible for the extent of spin accumulations and the strength of the SMR signal in the nanostructures.