GeSbTe (germanium-antimony-tellurium or GST) is a phase-change material from the group of chalcogenide glasses used in rewritable optical discs and phase-change memory applications. Its recrystallization time is 20 nanoseconds, allowing bitrates of up to 35 Mbit/s to be written and direct overwrite capability up to 106 cycles. It is suitable for land-groove recording formats. It is often used in rewritable DVDs. New phase-change memories are possible using n-doped GeSbTe semiconductor. The melting point of the alloy is about 600 °C (900 K) and the crystallization temperature is between 100 and 150 °C. During writing, the material is erased, initialized into its crystalline state, with low-intensity laser irradiation. The material heats up to its crystallization temperature, but not its melting point, and crystallizes. The information is written at the crystalline phase, by heating spots of it with short (<10 ns), high-intensity laser pulses; the material melts locally and is quickly cooled, remaining in the amorphous phase. As the amorphous phase has lower reflectivity than the crystalline phase, data can be recorded as dark spots on the crystalline background. Recently, novel liquid organogermanium precursors, such as isobutylgermane (IBGe) and tetrakis(dimethylamino)germane (TDMAGe) were developed and used in conjunction with the metalorganics of antimony and tellurium, such as tris-dimethylamino antimony (TDMASb) and di-isopropyl telluride (DIPTe) respectively, to grow GeSbTe and other chalcogenide films of very high purity by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Dimethylamino germanium trichloride (DMAGeC) is also reported as the chloride containing and superior dimethylaminogermanium precursor for Ge deposition by MOCVD.
Material properties
GeSbTe is a ternary compound of germanium, antimony, and tellurium, with composition GeTe-Sb2Te3. In the GeSbTe system, there is a pseudo-line as shown upon which most of the alloys lie. Moving down this pseudo-line, it can be seen that as we go from Sb2Te3 to GeTe, the melting point and glass transition temperature of the materials increase, crystallization speed decreases and data retention increases. Hence, in order to get high data transfer rate, we need to use material with fast crystallization speed such as Sb2Te3. This material is not stable because of its low activation energy. On the other hand, materials with good amorphous stability like GeTe has slow crystallization speed because of its high activation energy. In its stable state, crystalline GeSbTe has two possible configurations: hexagonal and a metastable face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice. When it is rapidly crystallized however, it was found to have a distorted rocksalt structure. GeSbTe has a glass transition temperature of around 100 °C. GeSbTe also has many vacancy defects in the lattice, of 20 to 25% depending on the specific GeSbTe compound. Hence, Te has an extra lone pair of electrons, which are important for many of the characteristics of GeSbTe. Crystal defects are also common in GeSbTe and due to these defects, an Urbach tail in the band structure is formed in these compounds. GeSbTe is generally p type and there are many electronic states in the band gap accounting for acceptor and donor like traps. GeSbTe has two stable states, crystalline and amorphous. The phase change mechanism from high resistance amorphous phase to low resistance crystalline phase in nano-timescale and threshold switching are two of the most important characteristic of GeSbTe.
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