DOI: 10.3390/app8010130. A Phase Change Material for Reconfigurable Circuit Applications

A Phase Change Material for Reconfigurable Circuit Applications

10.3390/app8010130

Crossref journal-article

MDPI AG

Applied Sciences (1968)

Abstract

The large resistance contrast between amorphous and crystalline states of phase change materials (PCM) makes them a promising candidate for data-storage applications. Germanium telluride (GeTe), an early member of the PCM family, shows ~6 orders of magnitude difference in resistivity upon phase transition. In this paper, two different heating methods, direct (Joule) and indirect thermal heating, were applied to induce a phase transition in vertical and horizontal GeTe resistors. In the electrical measurements, it was observed that thermal heating produces a two orders of magnitude larger difference in GeTe resistivity that the Joule heating, irrespective of the resistor’s geometry and orientation. It was also found that the large inter-electrode distances in horizontal resistors make them impractical for low voltage applications. In addition, a correlation in between crystallization voltage and resistor’s geometrical parameters (i.e., inter-electrode distance and cross-sectional area) was also established. Here, it was found that the threshold voltage increases with resistor length, while it remains unaffected with a change in cross-sectional area. This work provides design guidelines to make use of not only GeTe but also other phase change materials in reconfigurable circuit applications.

Bibliography

Tomer, D., & Coutu, R. (2018). A Phase Change Material for Reconfigurable Circuit Applications. Applied Sciences, 8(1), 130.

Authors 2

Dushyant Tomer (first)
Ronald Coutu (additional)

References 17 Referenced 10

10.1021/cr900040x / Chem. Rev. / Phase change materials and their applications in nonvolatile memories by Raoux (2010)
10.1038/nmat2009 / Nat. Mater. / Phase-change materials for rewriteable data storage by Wuttig (2007)
10.1016/S1369-7021(11)70301-7 / Mater. Today / Phase change materials in non-volatile storage by Ielmini (2011)
Shim, Y., Hummel, G., and Rais-Zadeh, M. (2013, January 20–24). RF switches using phase change materials. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE 26th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, Taipei, Taiwan. (10.1109/MEMSYS.2013.6474221)
10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.3679 / Phys. Rev. Lett. / Dynamics of ultrafast phase changes in amorphous GeSb films by Solis (1998)
10.1063/1.2784169 / Appl. Phys. Lett. / Thickness and stochiometry dependence of the thermal conductivity of GeSbTe films by Reifenberg (2007)
10.1109/LED.2004.836032 / IEEE Electron Device Lett. / Electronic Switching Effect and Phase-Change Transition in Chalcogenide Materials by Redaelli (2004)
10.1038/srep11150 / Sci. Rep. / A zero density change phase change memory material: GeTe-O structural characteristics upon crystallization by Zhou (2015)
10.1063/1.3191670 / Appl. Phys. Lett. / Nanosecond switching in GeTe phase change memory cells by Bruns (2009)
10.1088/0960-1317/27/1/013001 / J. Micromech. Microeng. / Development and evaluation of germanium telluride phase change material based Ohmic switches for RF applications by Wang (2016)
10.1109/LED.2013.2278816 / IEEE Electron Device Lett. / A four terminal, inline, chalcogenide phase change RF switch using an independent resistive heater for thermal actuation by Borodulin (2013)
10.1109/LED.2014.2303972 / IEEE Electron Device Lett. / A low-loss directly heated two-port RF phase change switch by Wang (2014)
El-Hinnawy, N., Borodulin, P., Jones, E.B., Wagner, B.P., King, M.R., Mason, J.S., Hartman, J., Howell, R., Lee, M., and Young, R. (2014, January 19–22). Improvements in GeTe-based inline phase-change switch technology for RF switching applications. Proceedings of the CS MANTECH Conference, Denver, CO, USA. (10.1109/CSICS.2014.6978522)
Raoux, S., and Wuttig, M. (2009). Phase Change Materials Science and Applications, Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. (10.1007/978-0-387-84874-7)
Wen, C.Y., Zhao, E.K., Chong, T.C., Bain, J.A., Schlesinger, T.E., Pileggi, L.T., and Paramesh, J. (2010, January 6–8). A phase-change via-reconfigurable on-chip inductor. Proceedings of the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA. (10.1109/IEDM.2010.5703334)
10.1063/1.3210792 / Appl. Phys. Lett. / Threshold field of phase change memory materials measured using phase change bridge devices by Krebs (2009)
10.1063/1.3508954 / Appl. Phys. Lett. / Low resistance, high dynamic range reconfigurable phase change switch for radio frequency applications by Chua (2010)

Dates

Type	When
Created	7 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 18, 2018, 12:19 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 2 months ago (June 9, 2024, 11:57 a.m.)
Indexed	4 months, 1 week ago (April 10, 2025, 9:30 a.m.)
Issued	7 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 18, 2018)
Published	7 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 18, 2018)
Published Online	7 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 18, 2018)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Tomer_2018, title={A Phase Change Material for Reconfigurable Circuit Applications}, volume={8}, ISSN={2076-3417}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app8010130}, DOI={10.3390/app8010130}, number={1}, journal={Applied Sciences}, publisher={MDPI AG}, author={Tomer, Dushyant and Coutu, Ronald}, year={2018}, month=jan, pages={130} }

JSON

{
  "indexed": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2025,
        4,
        10
      ]
    ],
    "date-time": "2025-04-10T13:30:48Z",
    "timestamp": 1744291848297
  },
  "reference-count": 17,
  "publisher": "MDPI AG",
  "issue": "1",
  "license": [
    {
      "start": {
        "date-parts": [
          [
            2018,
            1,
            18
          ]
        ],
        "date-time": "2018-01-18T00:00:00Z",
        "timestamp": 1516233600000
      },
      "content-version": "vor",
      "delay-in-days": 0,
      "URL": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
    }
  ],
  "content-domain": {
    "domain": [],
    "crossmark-restriction": false
  },
  "abstract": "<jats:p>The large resistance contrast between amorphous and crystalline states of phase change materials (PCM) makes them a promising candidate for data-storage applications. Germanium telluride (GeTe), an early member of the PCM family, shows ~6 orders of magnitude difference in resistivity upon phase transition. In this paper, two different heating methods, direct (Joule) and indirect thermal heating, were applied to induce a phase transition in vertical and horizontal GeTe resistors. In the electrical measurements, it was observed that thermal heating produces a two orders of magnitude larger difference in GeTe resistivity that the Joule heating, irrespective of the resistor\u2019s geometry and orientation. It was also found that the large inter-electrode distances in horizontal resistors make them impractical for low voltage applications. In addition, a correlation in between crystallization voltage and resistor\u2019s geometrical parameters (i.e., inter-electrode distance and cross-sectional area) was also established. Here, it was found that the threshold voltage increases with resistor length, while it remains unaffected with a change in cross-sectional area. This work provides design guidelines to make use of not only GeTe but also other phase change materials in reconfigurable circuit applications.</jats:p>",
  "DOI": "10.3390/app8010130",
  "type": "journal-article",
  "created": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2018,
        1,
        18
      ]
    ],
    "date-time": "2018-01-18T17:19:48Z",
    "timestamp": 1516295988000
  },
  "page": "130",
  "source": "Crossref",
  "is-referenced-by-count": 10,
  "title": "A Phase Change Material for Reconfigurable Circuit Applications",
  "prefix": "10.3390",
  "volume": "8",
  "author": [
    {
      "given": "Dushyant",
      "family": "Tomer",
      "sequence": "first",
      "affiliation": [
        {
          "name": "Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233, USA"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "given": "Ronald",
      "family": "Coutu",
      "sequence": "additional",
      "affiliation": [
        {
          "name": "Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233, USA"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "member": "1968",
  "published-online": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2018,
        1,
        18
      ]
    ]
  },
  "reference": [
    {
      "key": "ref_1",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "240",
      "DOI": "10.1021/cr900040x",
      "article-title": "Phase change materials and their applications in nonvolatile memories",
      "volume": "110",
      "author": "Raoux",
      "year": "2010",
      "journal-title": "Chem. Rev."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_2",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "824",
      "DOI": "10.1038/nmat2009",
      "article-title": "Phase-change materials for rewriteable data storage",
      "volume": "6",
      "author": "Wuttig",
      "year": "2007",
      "journal-title": "Nat. Mater."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_3",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "600",
      "DOI": "10.1016/S1369-7021(11)70301-7",
      "article-title": "Phase change materials in non-volatile storage",
      "volume": "14",
      "author": "Ielmini",
      "year": "2011",
      "journal-title": "Mater. Today"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_4",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "unstructured": "Shim, Y., Hummel, G., and Rais-Zadeh, M. (2013, January 20\u201324). RF switches using phase change materials. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE 26th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, Taipei, Taiwan.",
      "DOI": "10.1109/MEMSYS.2013.6474221"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_5",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "3679",
      "DOI": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.3679",
      "article-title": "Dynamics of ultrafast phase changes in amorphous GeSb films",
      "volume": "81",
      "author": "Solis",
      "year": "1998",
      "journal-title": "Phys. Rev. Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_6",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "111904",
      "DOI": "10.1063/1.2784169",
      "article-title": "Thickness and stochiometry dependence of the thermal conductivity of GeSbTe films",
      "volume": "91",
      "author": "Reifenberg",
      "year": "2007",
      "journal-title": "Appl. Phys. Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_7",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "684",
      "DOI": "10.1109/LED.2004.836032",
      "article-title": "Electronic Switching Effect and Phase-Change Transition in Chalcogenide Materials",
      "volume": "25",
      "author": "Redaelli",
      "year": "2004",
      "journal-title": "IEEE Electron Device Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_8",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "11150",
      "DOI": "10.1038/srep11150",
      "article-title": "A zero density change phase change memory material: GeTe-O structural characteristics upon crystallization",
      "volume": "5",
      "author": "Zhou",
      "year": "2015",
      "journal-title": "Sci. Rep."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_9",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "043108",
      "DOI": "10.1063/1.3191670",
      "article-title": "Nanosecond switching in GeTe phase change memory cells",
      "volume": "95",
      "author": "Bruns",
      "year": "2009",
      "journal-title": "Appl. Phys. Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_10",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "013001",
      "DOI": "10.1088/0960-1317/27/1/013001",
      "article-title": "Development and evaluation of germanium telluride phase change material based Ohmic switches for RF applications",
      "volume": "27",
      "author": "Wang",
      "year": "2016",
      "journal-title": "J. Micromech. Microeng."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_11",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "1313",
      "DOI": "10.1109/LED.2013.2278816",
      "article-title": "A four terminal, inline, chalcogenide phase change RF switch using an independent resistive heater for thermal actuation",
      "volume": "34",
      "author": "Borodulin",
      "year": "2013",
      "journal-title": "IEEE Electron Device Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_12",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "491",
      "DOI": "10.1109/LED.2014.2303972",
      "article-title": "A low-loss directly heated two-port RF phase change switch",
      "volume": "35",
      "author": "Wang",
      "year": "2014",
      "journal-title": "IEEE Electron Device Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_13",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "unstructured": "El-Hinnawy, N., Borodulin, P., Jones, E.B., Wagner, B.P., King, M.R., Mason, J.S., Hartman, J., Howell, R., Lee, M., and Young, R. (2014, January 19\u201322). Improvements in GeTe-based inline phase-change switch technology for RF switching applications. Proceedings of the CS MANTECH Conference, Denver, CO, USA.",
      "DOI": "10.1109/CSICS.2014.6978522"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_14",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "unstructured": "Raoux, S., and Wuttig, M. (2009). Phase Change Materials Science and Applications, Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.",
      "DOI": "10.1007/978-0-387-84874-7"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_15",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "unstructured": "Wen, C.Y., Zhao, E.K., Chong, T.C., Bain, J.A., Schlesinger, T.E., Pileggi, L.T., and Paramesh, J. (2010, January 6\u20138). A phase-change via-reconfigurable on-chip inductor. Proceedings of the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA.",
      "DOI": "10.1109/IEDM.2010.5703334"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_16",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "082101",
      "DOI": "10.1063/1.3210792",
      "article-title": "Threshold field of phase change memory materials measured using phase change bridge devices",
      "volume": "95",
      "author": "Krebs",
      "year": "2009",
      "journal-title": "Appl. Phys. Lett."
    },
    {
      "key": "ref_17",
      "doi-asserted-by": "crossref",
      "first-page": "183506",
      "DOI": "10.1063/1.3508954",
      "article-title": "Low resistance, high dynamic range reconfigurable phase change switch for radio frequency applications",
      "volume": "97",
      "author": "Chua",
      "year": "2010",
      "journal-title": "Appl. Phys. Lett."
    }
  ],
  "container-title": "Applied Sciences",
  "original-title": [],
  "language": "en",
  "link": [
    {
      "URL": "https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/8/1/130/pdf",
      "content-type": "unspecified",
      "content-version": "vor",
      "intended-application": "similarity-checking"
    }
  ],
  "deposited": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2024,
        6,
        9
      ]
    ],
    "date-time": "2024-06-09T15:57:17Z",
    "timestamp": 1717948637000
  },
  "score": 1,
  "resource": {
    "primary": {
      "URL": "https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/8/1/130"
    }
  },
  "subtitle": [],
  "short-title": [],
  "issued": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2018,
        1,
        18
      ]
    ]
  },
  "references-count": 17,
  "journal-issue": {
    "issue": "1",
    "published-online": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          2018,
          1
        ]
      ]
    }
  },
  "alternative-id": [
    "app8010130"
  ],
  "URL": "http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app8010130",
  "relation": {},
  "ISSN": [
    "2076-3417"
  ],
  "subject": [],
  "container-title-short": "Applied Sciences",
  "published": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2018,
        1,
        18
      ]
    ]
  }
}