Molecular beam epitaxial growth of oriented and uniform Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ nanoparticles with compact dimensions

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• 作者：Beining Zheng ; Yu Sun ; Jie Wu ; Long Yuan ; Xiaofeng Wu…
• 关键词：Nanoparticles ; Ge2Sb2Te5 ; Molecular beam epitaxy ; Memory device applications
• 刊名：Journal of Nanoparticle Research
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：19
• 期：2
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Chemistry and Materials Science
• 刊物主题：Nanotechnology; Inorganic Chemistry; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Physical Chemistry; Optics, Lasers, Photonics, Optical Devices;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-896X
• 卷排序：19

文摘

The scaling-down of phase change memory cell is critical to achieve high-performance and high-density memory devices. Herein, we report that Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ nanoparticles along the [1 1 1] direction were synthesized without templates or etching in a molecular beam epitaxy system. Under non-stoichiometric Ge:Sb:Te beam ratio condition, the growth of high-density Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ nanoparticles was achieved by Zn-doping. The average diameter of the nanoparticles is 8 nm, and the full width at half maximum of the size distribution is 2.7 nm. Our results suggest that the size and shape modifications of Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ nanoparticles could be induced by Zn-doping which influences the nucleation in the growth process. In addition, the bonding states of Zn and Te verified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy proved that Zn atoms located in the Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ matrix. This approach exemplified here can be applied to the sub-20 nm phase change memory devices and may also be extendable to be served in the design and development of more materials with phase transitions.