Current-controlled negative-resistance behaviour and memory switching in bulk As-Te-Se glasses

Abstract

The current-voltage characteristics and electrical switching behaviour of bulk AsxTe100-x-ySey glasses have been investigated over a wide composition range (25<or=x<or=60;10<or=y<or=25). Most of the glasses studied have been found to exhibit a current-controlled negative-resistance behaviour with memory. A sharp switching is observed in the glass of composition As50Te30Se20. A strong dependence of the switching fields on composition, which resembles the variation of crystallization temperatures with x, has been noticed. Further, a current pulse of 100 mA amplitude and 10 mu s duration is found to re-set the memory-switched As-Te-Se glasses to the original high-resistance state. The sample can be made to switch again, with +or-2% variation in the switching fields. This indicates the possible application of these materials in 'read mostly' memories.

Electrical switching in germanium telluride glasses doped with Cu and Ag

“…Ge 21 Se 17 Te 62 glass switches at 9 kV/cm [22]. Al x As 40 Te 60−x , and As 40 Se x Te 60−x glasses have switching fields in the range 3-15 kV/cm [23,24]. The switching fields of As x Te 100−x glasses (2.3-5.5 kV/cm) are comparable with present CuGe-Te and Ag-Ge-Te glasses [25].…”

Electrical switching and thermal studies on bulk Ge–Te–Bi glasses

“…It is also known that weaker bond, poor structural cross-linking and more lone-pair interactions [21] favor memory switching in telluride glasses. The present studies reveal that Ge 18 Te 82-x Bi x glasses also exhibit memory type electrical switching like many other binary and ternary telluride glasses such as Ge-Te, Si-Te, As-Te, Al-Te, As-Se-Te, Ge-As-Te, Ge-Te-Cu [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Threshold electrical switching in bulk As-Te-In glasses: composition dependence and topological effects

“…Memory switching is more prevalent in chalcogenide glassy systems and many binary and ternary glasses such as As± Te (Titus et al 1993), Al± Te (Prakash et al 1994), Ge± Te (Nagaraja Murthy 1999), Si± Te (Nagaraja Murthy 1999), As± Se± Te (Chatterjee et al 1994b), Ge± As± Te (Aravinda Narayan et al 1996), Al± Ge± Te (Aravinda Narayanan et al 2001), Cu± Ge± Te (Ramesh et al 1999a) and Ag± Ge± Te (Ramesh et al 1999b) and amorphous thin ® lms such as Ge± S , Ge± Te (Gosain et al 1989), As± Sb± Te (Nakayama et al 1993), Ge± As± Se (Fadel Figure 1. The I± V characteristics of As 40 Te 52:5 In 7:5 , As 35 Te 49 In 16 and As 30 Te 51:5 In 18:5 glasses, representing the three composition tie lines studied, namely As 40 Te 60¡ x In x , As 35 Te 65¡ x In x and As 30 Te 70¡ x In x .…”