Department of Mechanical Engineering
Stanford University
Principal Investigator
Kenneth E. Goodson
Thickness and Stoichiometry Dependence of the Thermal Conductivity of GeSbTe Films
Reifenberg, J.P., Panzer, M.A., Kim, S., Gibby, A.M., Zhang, Y., Wong, S., Wong, H.S., and Goodson, K.E., 2007, "Thickness and Stoichiometry Dependence of the Thermal Conductivity of GeSbTe Films," Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 91, pp. 111904-111906.
Thermal conduction in GeSbTe films strongly influences the writing energy and time for phase
change memory (PCM) technology. This study measures the thermal conductivity of Ge2Sb2Te5 between 25 and 340 °C for layers with thicknesses near 60, 120, and 350 nm. A strong thickness dependence of the thermal conductivity is attributed to a combination of thermal boundary resistance (TBR) and microstructural imperfections. Stoichiometric variations significantly alter the phase transition temperatures but do not strongly impact the thermal conductivity at a given temperature. This work makes progress on extracting the TBR for Ge2Sb2Te5 films, which is a critical unknown parameter for PCM simulations.
Related Projects
Phase change memory (PCM or PCRAM) is based on rapid, thermally-induced phase transitions in Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and related compounds. Because the phase change is induced by temperature changes, thermal...
Interface thermal transport is arguably the leading fundamental challenge for the design and implementation of advanced nanostructure technologies for energy conversion, computation, and data storage...