The ever increasing demand for efficient, dense and fast memories has led to the exploration of phase-change materials as a successor to silicon-based non-volatile Flash memory. Ge2Sb2Te5 is a promising phase-change material which stores data as atomic scale structural differences and, unlike Flash, can be scaled to a thickness of just 2 nm without compromising its ability to change phase. This inherent scalability and the fast, highly cyclable switching ability are all factors that are currently driving the development of phase-change random access memory.

Nanoscale material engineering provides further scope to modify the overall properties of phase-change materials thus presenting openings for the development of new materials for memories and other switching technologies. Recently, we have used our knowledge of the atomic scale switching process in Ge2Sb2Te5 to create a nano-structured material with the perfect local atomic environment for the Ge2Sb2Te5 crystal - amorphous phase transition therefore allowing the material to switch at higher speeds whilst consuming an order of magnitude less energy than the unstructured composite material. It would be interesting to use this nano-engineering approach to develop nano-structured phase change materials for nano-photonics switching and memory applications with the ultimate aim of creating a low energy, highly cyclable and fast, plasmonic frequency switch which could be triggered either optically or electrically. This presentation will discuss nano-structured phase change materials and their use in next generation memory technologies before considering other uses for these materials in nano-photonic devices.


Seminar, January 31, 2011, 12:00. Seminar Room

Hosted by Prof. Valerio Pruneri