Gary Gibson

Phase-change recording medium that enables ultrahigh-density electron-beam data storage

An ultrahigh-density electron-beam-based data storage medium is described that consists of a diode formed by growing an InSe/GaSe phase-change bilayer film epitaxially on silicon. Bits are recorded as amorphous regions in the InSe layer and are detected via the current induced in the diode by a scanned electron beam. This signal current is modulated by differences in the electrical properties of the amorphous and crystalline states. The success of this recording scheme results from the remarkable ability of layered III-VI materials, such as InSe, to maintain useful electrical properties at their surfaces after repeated cycles of amorphization and recrystallization.

Local Temperature Redistribution and Structural Transition During Joule‐Heating‐Driven Conductance Switching in VO2

Joule-heating induced conductance-switching is studied in VO2 , a Mott insulator. Complementary in situ techniques including optical characterization, blackbody microscopy, scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) and numerical simulations are used. Abrupt redistribution in local temperature is shown to occur upon conductance-switching along with a structural phase transition, at the same current.

Crystal structure of κ-In2Se3

Structural properties of single-phase films of {kappa}-In{sub 2}Se{sub 3} and {gamma}-In{sub 2}Se{sub 3} were investigated. Both films were polycrystalline but their microstructure differed considerably. The a-lattice parameter of {kappa}-In{sub 2}Se{sub 3} has been measured. Comparison between these two materials indicates that {kappa}-In{sub 2}Se{sub 3} has a significantly larger unit cell ({Delta}c = 2.5 {+-} 0.2 % and {Delta}a = 13.5 {+-} 0.5%) and a structure more similar to the {alpha}-phase of In{sub 2}Se{sub 3}.

An accurate locally active memristor model for S-type negative differential resistance in NbOx

A number of important commercial applications would benefit from the introduction of easily manufactured devices that exhibit current-controlled, or “S-type,” negative differential resistance (NDR). A leading example is emerging non-volatile memory based on crossbar array architectures. Due to the inherently linear current vs. voltage characteristics of candidate non-volatile memristor memory elements, individual memory cells in these crossbar arrays can be addressed only if a highly non-linear circuit element, termed a “selector,” is incorporated in the cell. Selectors based on a layer of niobium oxide sandwiched between two electrodes have been investigated by a number of groups because the NDR they exhibit provides a promisingly large non-linearity. We have developed a highly accurate compact dynamical model for their electrical conduction that shows that the NDR in these devices results from a thermal feedback mechanism. A series of electrothermal measurements and numerical simulations corroborate this model. These results reveal that the leakage currents can be minimized by thermally isolating the selector or by incorporating materials with larger activation energies for electron motion.

Trilayer Tunnel Selectors for Memristor Memory Cells

An integrated memory cell with a memristor and a trilayer crested barrier selector, showing repeatable nonlinear current–voltage switching loops is presented. The fully atomic‐layer‐deposited TaN1+x/Ta2O5/TaN1+x crested barrier selector yields a large nonlinearity (>104), high endurance (>108), low variability, and low temperature dependence.

Structural and electronic properties of amorphous and polycrystalline In2Se3 films

Structural and electronic properties of amorphous and single-phase polycrystalline films of γ- and κ-In2Se3 have been measured. The effect of deposition conditions on the film phase was studied extensively. The stable γ phase nucleates homogeneously in the film bulk and has a high resistivity, while the metastable κ phase nucleates at the film surface and has a moderate resistivity. The microstructures of polycrystalline hot-deposited and postannealed, cold-deposited γ films are quite different but their electronic properties are similar. The increase in the resistivity of amorphous In2Se3 films upon annealing is interpreted in terms of the replacement of In–In bonds with In–Se bonds during crystallization. Great care must be taken in the preparation of In2Se3 films for electrical measurements as the presence of excess chalcogen or surface oxidation may greatly affect the film properties.

Multilayer structured polymer light emitting diodes with cross-linked polymer matrices

Currently, there is great interest in manufacturing multilayer polymer light emitting diode (PLED) structures via low-cost solution-based spin-casting or printing methods. The difficulty with this approach is that solvent from freshly deposited films often dissolves the underlying layers. This letter demonstrates that fully operational multilayer PLED structures can be fabricated via a solution process by embedding the hole transport material in cross-linked inert polymer matrices that protect the functional material while subsequent layers are deposited using the same solvent. The resulting devices exhibited greatly improved quantum efficiency compared with devices that did not employ cross-linked polymer matrices.

Thermal conductivity measurement of amorphous dielectric multilayers for phase-change memory power reduction

In this work, we investigate the temperature-dependent thermal conductivities of few nanometer thick alternating stacks of amorphous dielectrics, specifically SiO2/Al2O3 and SiO2/Si3N4. Experiments using steady-state Joule-heating and electrical thermometry, while using a micro-miniature refrigerator over a wide temperature range (100–500 K), show that amorphous thin-film multilayer SiO2/Si3N4 and SiO2/Al2O3 exhibit through-plane room temperature effective thermal conductivities of about 1.14 and 0.48 W/(m × K), respectively. In the case of SiO2/Al2O3, the reduced conductivity is attributed to lowered film density (7.03 → 5.44 × 1028 m–3 for SiO2 and 10.2 → 8.27 × 1028 m–3 for Al2O3) caused by atomic layer deposition of thin-films as well as a small, finite, and repeating thermal boundary resistance (TBR) of 1.5 m2 K/GW between dielectric layers. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that vibrational mismatch between amorphous oxide layers is small, and that the TBR between layers is largely due to imperf...

Thermally induced crystallization in NbO2 thin films.

Niobium dioxide can exhibit negative differential resistance (NDR) in metal-insulator-metal (MIM) devices, which has recently attracted significant interest for its potential applications as a highly non-linear selector element in emerging nonvolatile memory (NVM) and as a locally-active element in neuromorphic circuits. In order to further understand the processing of this material system, we studied the effect of thermal annealing on a 15 nm thick NbO2 thin film sandwiched inside a nanoscale MIM device and compared it with 180 nm thick blanket NbOx (x = 2 and 2.5) films deposited on a silicon dioxide surface as references. A systematic transmission electron microscope (TEM) study revealed a similar structural transition from amorphous to a distorted rutile structure in both cases, with a transition temperature of 700 °C for the NbO2 inside the MIM device and a slightly higher transition temperature of 750 °C for the reference NbO2 film. Quantitative composition analysis from electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) showed the stoichiometry of the nominal 15 nm NbO2 layer in the as-fabricated MIM device deviated from the target 1:2 ratio because of an interaction with the electrode materials, which was more prominent at elevated annealing temperature.

The phase transition in VO2 probed using x-ray, visible and infrared radiations

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a model system that has been used to understand closely occurring multiband electronic (Mott) and structural (Peierls) transitions for over half a century due to continued scientific and technological interests. Among the many techniques used to study VO2, the most frequently used involve electromagnetic radiation as a probe. Understanding of the distinct physical information provided by different probing radiations is incomplete, mostly owing to the complicated nature of the phase transitions. Here, we use transmission of spatially averaged infrared (λ = 1.5 μm) and visible (λ = 500 nm) radiations followed by spectroscopy and nanoscale imaging using x-rays (λ = 2.25–2.38 nm) to probe the same VO2 sample while controlling the ambient temperature across its hysteretic phase transitions and monitoring its electrical resistance. We directly observed nanoscale puddles of distinct electronic and structural compositions during the transition. The two main results are that, during both ...