Nonthermal Transport of Energy Driven by Photoexcited Carriers in Switchable Solid States of GeTe

Abstract

Phase-change alloys have seen widespread use, from rewritable optical disks to current interest in their use in emerging neuromorphic computing architectures. In spite of this enormous commercial interest, the physics of the carriers in these materials is still not fully understood. Here, we describe the time and space dependence of the coupling between photoexcited carriers and the lattice in both the amorphous and crystalline states of one phase-change material, GeTe. We study this material using a time-resolved optical technique called the picosecond acoustic method to investigate the in situ thermally assisted amorphous-tocrystalline phase transformation in GeTe. Our work reveals a clear evolution of electron-phonon coupling during the phase transformation, as the spectra of photoexcited acoustic phonons in the amorphous (a-GeTe) and crystalline (α-GeTe) phases are different. In particular, and surprisingly, our analysis of the photoinduced acoustic pulse duration in crystalline GeTe suggests that part of the energy deposited during the photoexcitation process takes place over a distance that clearly exceeds that defined by the skin depth of the pump light. Alternatively, the photoexcitation process remains localized within that skin depth in the amorphous state. We then demonstrate that this is due to supersonic diffusion of photoexcited electronhole plasma in the crystalline state. Consequently, these findings prove the existence of the nonthermal transport of energy, which is much faster than lattice heat diffusion.

Glass‐Like Phonon Dynamics and Thermal Transport in a GeTe Nano‐Composite at Low Temperature

“…This is the case of the laser ultrasonics, which has already been successfully used in GeTe, although at longer wavelengths. [68] It is worth underlining that the lattice thermal conductivity value obtained at room temperature for GTC9 is comparable with what has been obtained in other GeTe-based materials developed for thermoelectric applications (see Ref. [69] and references therein for a review).…”

“…This is the case of the laser ultrasonics, which has already been successfully used in GeTe, although at longer wavelengths. [ 68 ]…”