Microwave AC Resonance Induced Phase Change in Sb2Te3 Nanowires

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 20; no. 12; pp. 8668 - 8674
• Main Authors: Tse, Pok Lam, Tian, Fugu, Mugica-Sanchez, Laura, Rüger, Oliver, Undisz, Andreas, Möthrath, George, Ronning, Carsten, Takahashi, Susumu, Lu, Jia Grace
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 09.12.2020
• Subjects: transport measurement; AC voltage; phase change material; nanowire
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03421

Scaling information bits to ever smaller dimensions is a dominant drive for information technology (IT). Nanostructured phase change material emerges as a key player in the current green-IT endeavor with low power consumption, functional modularity, and promising scalability. In this work, we present the demonstration of microwave AC voltage induced phase change phenomenon at ∼3 GHz in single Sb2Te3 nanowires. The resistance change by a total of 6–7 orders of magnitude is evidenced by a transition from the crystalline metallic to the amorphous semiconducting phase, which is cross-examined by temperature dependent transport measurement and high-resolution electron microscopy analysis. This discovery could potentially tailor multistate information bit encoding and electrical addressability along a single nanowire, rendering technology advancement for neuro-inspired computing devices.