Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 2201-2209Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/nl5007036
Keywords
GeTe; phase-change memory; antiphase boundary; weak localization; metal-insulator transition; in situ microscopy
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Funding
- NSF [DMR-1002164, 1210503, DMR-1008104, DMR-1120901]
- Penn-MRSEC [DMR05-20020]
- Materials Structures and Devices Center at MIT
- Nano/Bio Interface Center through the National Science Foundation NSEC [DMR08-32802]
- Division Of Materials Research
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1002164, 1210503] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Structural defects and their dynamics play an important role in controlling the behavior of phase-change materials (PCM) used in low-power nonvolatile memory devices. However, not much is known about the influence of disorder on the electronic properties of crystalline PCM prior to a structural phase-change. Here, we show that the application of voltage pulses to single-crystalline GeTe nanowire memory devices introduces structural disorder in the form of dislocations and antiphase boundaries (APB). The dynamic evolution and pile-up of APBs increases disorder at a local region of the nanowire, which electronically transforms it from a metal to a dirty metal to an insulator, while still retaining single-crystalline long-range order. We also observe that close to this metal-insulator transition, precise control over the applied voltage is required to create an insulating state; otherwise the system ends up in a more disordered amorphous phase suggesting the role of electronic instabilities during the structural phase-change.
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