J. Tominaga

An approach for recording and readout beyond the diffraction limit with an Sb thin film

A technique for recording and retrieving small marks beyond the optical diffraction limit was proposed. The basic experiment with this technique was also carried out at a constant linear velocity of 2.0 m/s, rotating a disk with a multi-layered structure of Sb and GeSbTe, which were separated by a thin film of SiN. By use of the optically nonlinear property of the Sb thin film, carrier to noise ratio of more than 10 dB was obtained from recorded marks of 90 nm, using an optical system with the laser wavelength of 686 nm and a numerical aperture of 0.6.

Interfacial phase-change memory

Phase-change memory technology relies on the electrical and optical properties of certain materials changing substantially when the atomic structure of the material is altered by heating or some other excitation process. For example, switching the composite Ge(2)Sb(2)Te(5) (GST) alloy from its covalently bonded amorphous phase to its resonantly bonded metastable cubic crystalline phase decreases the resistivity by three orders of magnitude, and also increases reflectivity across the visible spectrum. Moreover, phase-change memory based on GST is scalable, and is therefore a candidate to replace Flash memory for non-volatile data storage applications. The energy needed to switch between the two phases depends on the intrinsic properties of the phase-change material and the device architecture; this energy is usually supplied by laser or electrical pulses. The switching energy for GST can be reduced by limiting the movement of the atoms to a single dimension, thus substantially reducing the entropic losses associated with the phase-change process. In particular, aligning the c-axis of a hexagonal Sb(2)Te(3) layer and the 〈111〉 direction of a cubic GeTe layer in a superlattice structure creates a material in which Ge atoms can switch between octahedral sites and lower-coordination sites at the interface of the superlattice layers. Here we demonstrate GeTe/Sb(2)Te(3) interfacial phase-change memory (IPCM) data storage devices with reduced switching energies, improved write-erase cycle lifetimes and faster switching speeds.

Toward the Ultimate Limit of Phase Change in Ge2Sb2Te5

The limit to which the phase change memory material Ge(2)Sb(2)Te(5) can be scaled toward the smallest possible memory cell is investigated using structural and optical methodologies. The encapsulation material surrounding the Ge(2)Sb(2)Te(5) has an increasingly dominant effect on the materials ability to change phase, and a profound increase in the crystallization temperature is observed when the Ge(2)Sb(2)Te(5) layer is less than 6 nm thick. We have found that the increased crystallization temperature originates from compressive stress exerted from the encapsulation material. By minimizing the stress, we have maintained the bulk crystallization temperature in Ge(2)Sb(2)Te(5) films just 2 nm thick.

Raman scattering study of the a-GeTe structure and possible mechanism for the amorphous to crystal transition

We report on an inelastic (Raman) light scattering study of the local structure of amorphous GeTe (a-GeTe) films. A detailed analysis of the temperature-reduced Raman spectra has shown that appreciable structural changes occur as a function of temperature. These changes involve modifications of atomic arrangements such as to facilitate the rapid amorphous to crystal transformation, which is the major advantage of phase-change materials used in optical data storage media. A particular structural model, supported by polarization analysis, is proposed which is compatible with the experimental data as regards both the structure of a-GeTe and the crystallization transition. The remarkable difference between the Raman spectrum of the crystal and the glass can thus naturally be accounted for.

Distortion-triggered loss of long-range order in solids with bonding energy hierarchy

An amorphous-to-crystal transition in phase-change materials like Ge-Sb-Te is widely used for data storage. The basic principle is to take advantage of the property contrast between the crystalline and amorphous states to encode information; amorphization is believed to be caused by melting the materials with an intense laser or electrical pulse and subsequently quenching the melt. Here, we demonstrate that distortions in the crystalline phase may trigger a collapse of long-range order, generating the amorphous phase without going through the liquid state. We further show that the principal change in optical properties occurs during the distortion of the still crystalline structure, upsetting yet another commonly held belief that attributes the change in properties to the loss of long-range order. Furthermore, our results suggest a way to lower energy consumption by condensing phase change inducing energy into shorter pulses or through the use of coherent phonon excitation.

Rigid bubble pit formation and huge signal enhancement in super-resolution near-field structure disk with platinum-oxide layer

Huge signal enhancement was observed by a super-resolution near-field structure disk with a platinum-oxide layer. The carrier-to-noise ratio of 200-nm-mark trains reached 46.1 dB, and 42.3 dB was obtained even at 150-nm-mark trains. The sizes of the marks were one-fifth to one-seventh of the laser spot diameter of the readout system. The cross section of the mark trains was also observed by transmission electron microscopy. It was confirmed that 200-nm-size bubble pits were rigidly formed in good separation and ∼20-nm-platinum particles precipitated inside the bubble. The computer-simulation based on the model supported the huge signal enhancement.

Local plasmon photonic transistor

A proposal for a photonic transistor is made and some basic proving experiments are described. These experiments show that by focusing two laser beams (405 and 635 nm) in one small spot on a high-speed rotating optical disk, a large signal enhancement is observed. It was found that a plasmon interaction generated between a silver light-scattering center and recorded small marks in the optical disk with a super-resolution near-field structure produced the large signal amplification in the spot (<1 μm). A modulated signal of the blue laser was enhanced by 60 times by controlling the red laser power from 1.5 to 3.5 mW. It has been shown that the system has the potential to realize all-thin-films photonic transistors by using local plasmon amplification.

Crystallization-induced short-range order changes in amorphous GeTe

By means of x-ray absorption fine structure and Raman scattering spectroscopies we demonstrate that the structure of amorphous GeTe is likely to be a mixture of 4(Ge):2(Te) and 3(Ge):3(Te)-coordinated structural units. Upon crystallization, a rhombohedral (distorted rocksalt) structure is established with about 10% of vacancies occurring on Ge sites. The vacancies are believed to play an important role in determining the ratio of 3(Ge):3(Te) and 4(Ge):2(Te) structural units.

Sputtered silver oxide layers for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

We present results of reactively sputtered silver oxide thin films as a substrate material for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Herein, we show that deposited layers develop an increasingly strong SERS activity upon photoactivation at 488 nm. A benzoic acid/2-propanol solution was used to demonstrate that the bonding of molecules to SERS active sites at the surface can be followed by investigating temporal changes of the corresponding Raman intensities. Furthermore, the laser-induced structural changes in the silver oxide layers lead to a fluctuating SERS activity at high laser intensities which also affects the spectral features of amorphous carbon impurities.

Enhanced crystallization of GeTe from an Sb2Te3 template

Crystalline Sb2Te3 templates reduce the crystallization time of the phase change material GeTe by four orders of magnitude to 20 ns. Structural measurements and density functional theory molecular dynamics atomistic modeling show that this reduction is a direct consequence of textured crystal growth from a plane of octahedral crystal nucleation centers. The nucleation template serves to reduce the crystallization activation energy by 2.6 eV allowing crystallization to proceed at a temperature 95 °C lower than that of the untemplated GeTe film.