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Title: Hierarchically Self-Assembled Block Copolymer Blends for Templating Hollow Phase-Change Nanostructures with an Extremely Low Switching Current

Journal Article · · Chemistry of Materials
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [6]
  1. Korea Advanced Inst. Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering; Global Frontier R&D Center for Hybrid Interface Materials (HIM), Busan (Korea, Republic of)
  2. Korea Advanced Inst. Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  3. Pusan National Univ., Busan (Korea, Republic of). Shool of Materials Science and Engineering
  4. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division
  5. Gunma Univ. (Japan)
  6. Global Frontier R&D Center for Hybrid Interface Materials (HIM), Busan (Korea, Republic of); Pusan National Univ., Busan (Korea, Republic of). Shool of Materials Science and Engineering
+ Show Author Affiliations

Phase change memory (PCM) is one of the most promising candidates for next-generation nonvolatile memory devices because of its high speed, excellent reliability, and outstanding scalability. But, the high switching current of PCM devices has been a critical hurdle to realize low-power operation. Although one solution is to reduce the switching volume of the memory, the resolution limit of photolithography hinders further miniaturization of device dimensions. Here, we employed unconventional self-assembly geometries obtained from blends of block copolymers (BCPs) to form ring-shaped hollow PCM nanostructures with an ultrasmall contact area between a phase-change material (Ge2Sb2Te5) and a heater (TiN) electrode. The high-density (approximately 0.1 terabits per square inch) PCM nanoring arrays showed extremely small switching current of 2-3 mu A. Furthermore, the relatively small reset current of the ring-shaped PCM compared to the pillar-shaped devices is attributed to smaller switching volume, which is well supported by electro-thermal simulation results. Our approach may also be extended to other nonvolatile memory device applications such as resistive switching memory and magnetic storage devices, where the control of nanoscale geometry can significantly affect device performances.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1357004
Journal Information:
Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 7; ISSN 0897-4756
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 11 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (37)

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Cited By (4)

Polymeric nanoblends compatibilization: a strategic design to enhance the effectiveness of nanocarriers for biomedical applications
  • Soares, Daniel Crístian Ferreira; Arribada, Raquel Gregorio; de Barros, Andre Luis Branco
  • International Journal of Polymeric Materials and Polymeric Biomaterials, Vol. 69, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1080/00914037.2019.1581779
journal March 2019
Polyferrocenylsilanes: synthesis, properties, and applications journal January 2016
Hollow polymer nanocapsules: synthesis, properties, and applications journal January 2018
Pattern formation of metal–oxide hybrid nanostructures via the self-assembly of di-block copolymer blends journal January 2019

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36 MATERIALS SCIENCE