Epitaxial phase change materials
Strategic Japanese-German Cooperative Programme on 'Nanoelectronics'
Synthesis and time-resolved structural analysis of the switching behavior of epitaxial phase change materials for nanoscale data storage applications
Within this three-year project which started Jan 1st, 2008, we study the structure and epitaxial growth of phase change materials like Ge2Sb2Te5 on GaSb(001). We want to analyze the detailed structural changes involved in the transition between the crystalline and the amorphous states of this material by epitaxially orienting its unit cell. This should allow us to perform more detailed studies than previously possible by EXAFS and powder diffraction. We plan to add a switching laser to the MBE system to directly compare the as-grown and laser-transformed phases of the material.
This project is a collaboration with the group of Paul Fons at AIST, Tsukuba, Japan. It is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

