Abstract
The concept of electrical probe memory using phase-change media has recently received considerable attention due to its promising potential for next-generation data storage device. However, the physical performances of the conventional electrical probe memory are strongly limited by its diamond-like carbon capping layer ascribed to its large contact resistance and sharp difference between the theoretically optimized properties values and the experimentally measured values. Therefore, the diamond-like carbon capping layer is replaced by a titanium nitride layer here, and the modified device architecture is re-optimized by a newly developed three-dimensional model, resulting in a media stack consisting of a 2-nm Ge2Sb2Te5 layer sandwiched by 2-nm titanium nitride layer with an electrical conductivity of 2 × 105 Ω−1 m−1 and a thermal conductivity of 12 W m−1 K−1, and a 40-nm titanium nitride bottom layer with an electrical conductivity of 2 × 106 Ω−1 m−1 and a thermal conductivity of 12 W m−1 K−1. The advantageous features of such a device on the writing of both crystalline and amorphous bits are also demonstrated according to the developed model.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the financial supports of the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Science and Technology Department (Grant No. 20151BAB217003) and the Foundation of Jiangxi Education Department (Grant No. GJJ170598).
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Wang, L., Wen, J., Yang, C. et al. Design of electrical probe memory with TiN capping layer. J Mater Sci 53, 15549–15558 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2707-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2707-4