Measurements of activation energy in the initialization process of amorphous GeTe films

Crystallization of Ge:Sb:Te Thin Films for Phase Change Memory Application

“…Activation energy of amorphous to rhombohedral phase crystallization reported in the literature demonstrates large dispersion: 1.7 eV (Libera et al, 1993), 1.77 eV (Lu et al, 1995), 1.96 eV , 2.5 eV (Fan et al, 2004), 3.9 eV (Matsushita et al, 1989). Such dispersion can be dependent on the differences in the deposition methods, type of substrate, method of results interpretation, etc.…”

New insights in GeTe growth mechanisms

“…The crystallization of a-GeTe thin films is characterized by homogeneous random nucleation of the GeTe compound, followed by its three-dimensional (3D) growth [9,20,22]. Reported GeTe crystallization experiments were performed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) [23,24], in situ resistivity measurements [25][26][27] or in situ reflectivity measurements [22,23,28], allowing an activation energy linked to the crystallization process to be determined using the Kissinger analysis. This activation energy varies between 1.7 and 3.9 eV depending on the authors and the experimental technique [22][23][24][25]28].…”

Mechanisms of Atomic Motion Through Crystalline GeTe

“…In any case, it is obvious that whichever atomic migration pathway through the crystal must be delimited by the amorphization energy. The latter has been estimated to be around 2.5 eV for GST compounds and >3 eV for GeTe. , Very recently, the crucial role of vacancies (and vacancy clusters) in the phase-change process has been proven experimentally …”