Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 15: Poster Session

DS 15.64: Poster

Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 15:00–17:00, Poster B

Crystallization kinetics in amorphous Tellurium alloys used for phase change recording — •Tobias Sontheimer, Michael Klein, and Matthias Wuttig — Institute of Physics (IA), RWTH Aachen University of Technology, 52056 Aachen, Germany

Phase change materials perfectly meet all requirements expected from materials used for data storage. The long-term stability of the amorphous phase on the one hand and the ability to switch from one phase to the other within nanoseconds accompanied by a high change of reflectivity on the other hand paved the way to the commercial application of phase change materials in CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD-RAMs. Even though various kinds of data storage devices based on these materials are commercially available neither their physical properties nor their kinetic behavior are completely understood.

In this study, the nucleation and growth process of Tellurium alloys were investigated, driven by the ambition to gain a fundamental understanding of the phase transformation. Differential Scanning Calometry measurements and annealing experiments followed by ex-situ AFM-measurements, which are based on exploiting the density difference between the crystalline and amorphous phase, are among the characterization techniques employed in this investigation. This combination of methods allows us to track the time- and temperature-dependent nucleation and growth process and gain insight into the crystallization mechanism.