Chemistry of Materials
Chemistry of Materials
5 years ago

Electronic Structure of Transition-Metal Based Cu2GeTe3 Phase Change Material: Revealing the Key Role of Cu d Electrons

Electronic Structure of Transition-Metal Based Cu2GeTe3 Phase Change Material: Revealing the Key Role of Cu d Electrons
Satoshi Shindo, Alexander V. Kolobov, Yuta Saito, Paul Fons, Yuji Sutou, Keisuke Kobayashi, Xeniya Kozina, Jonathan M. Skelton
The electronic structure of the as-deposited amorphous and crystalline phases of transition-metal based Cu2GeTe3 phase-change memory material has been systematically investigated using hard-X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and density-functional theory simulations. We shed light on the role of Cu d electrons and reveal that participation of d electrons in bonding plays an important role during the phase-change process. A large electrical contrast as well as fast switching is preserved even in the tetrahedrally bonded crystal structure, which does not exhibit resonant bonding. On the basis of the obtained results, we propose that transition-metal based phase change memory materials, a class of materials that have been previously overlooked, will be candidates not only for nonvolatile memory applications, but also for emerging applications.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b02436

DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b02436

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.