Multilayered Thin-Film Materials for Phase-Change Erasable Storage

Conclusion

Phase-change materials possess several attractive features for use as erasable optical storage media and will almost certainly receive increasing attention as the generai field of optical storage matures. The past two decades have produced a fairly good understanding of the materials properties required by the technology aspects of phase-change recording, and suitable materials have been found to satisfy some but not ail of the imposed constraints. The engineering and development aspects of the field have, however, far outrun the underlying scientific understanding of these multilayer films, and phase-change storage provides ample opportunity for some challenging materials research on both the applied and fundamental levels. Future developments in the field will address, individually and in concert, various aspects of thin-film processing, thin-film adhesion and mechanical behavior, heatflow, and phase transformations. Many of these problems can be studied in configurations independent of the storage application, making them relevant to other thin-film and device technologies as well.