AVS 46th International Symposium
    Thin Films Division Thursday Sessions
       Session TF-ThA

Paper TF-ThA8
Temperature Dependence of Structure and Electrical Properties of Germanium-Antimony-Tellurium Thin Films

Thursday, October 28, 1999, 4:20 pm, Room 615

Session: Ex-situ Characterization
Presenter: E. Prokhorov, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico
Authors: J. González-Hernández, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico
E. Prokhorov, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico
Y.V. Vorobiev, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico
Correspondent: Click to Email
The interest in the study of Ge:Sb:Te thin films is due to their use as optical and electrical devices materials. Both of these applications are based on structure change from amorphous to crystalline. Thus, understanding of the mechanism of crystallization in this material is important from the basic technological point of veiw. In this work we have studied the kinetics of the crystallization of Ge:Sb:Te films prepared by thermal evaporation. For that, in situ resistance and capacitance measurements during heating were used. The transformation kinetics from amorphous to crystalline phase was analyzed on the basis of the annealing behavior. The results were interpreted using Kissinger model, from which, the activation energy of the crystallization process is obtained. Using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and optical microscope measurements, we have observed that during heating at different heating rates, crystallization of film is accompanied by Te phase segregation. The number and size of Te inclusions depend on the heating rate and film thickness. From our measurements we found that the capacitance measurements is the new highly sensitive method to control the crystallization process in the thin films. It provides additional information not obtained using other methods.