Study of Er-Sb and Er-Te parental alloys used in phase change memory.

• Two new phase-change materials of Er 20 Sb 80 and Er 13 Te 87 compounds are screened out. • Er 20 Sb 80 achieves a ultra-fast writing speed of 700 ps. • Origin of high thermal stability proposed to the Er-alloyed Sb/Te compounds have been discussed. • Characteristics of structure of Er-alloyed Sb/Te films are analyzed from the experimental and theoretical perspective. The erbium (Er)-alloyed Sb 2 Te 3 phase-change material has recently been found to enable fast writing speed and high data retention due to the Er-stabilized precursor and the formation of coordinate bonds between Er and Te. However, the detailed characteristics of binary alloys about Er-Sb-Te system are still missing. In this work, Er-alloyed Sb/Te binary material are investigated. The Er 20 Sb 80 compound we designed allows a ultra-fast writing speed of 0.7 ns in the conventional PCRAM device, and the Er 13 Te 87 also can be switched under 50 ns. The impurity Er improves the ability of forming the amorphous structure of Sb/Te, and this stems from the strong Er-Sb and Er-Te bonds stabilize glassy states. Our study demonstrates the device performance of Er-alloyed Sb/Te binary phase-change material, and the origins of these improved performance are also explained by the microscopic observation and molecular dynamics simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]