Quantitative measure of tetrahedral-sp3 geometries in amorphous phase-change alloys

Phase change or Ovonic memory technology has gained much interest in the past decade as a viable solution for the rapid increase in the demand for memory storage. This unique technology, first proposed by S. Ovshinsky in 1968, is based on storing information on the crystalline and amorphous phases of a material. The most common phase-change materials (PCMs) use chalcogenide alloys such as the Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST225). However, while the structure of its crystalline phase is relatively well characterized as consisting of a rhombohedrally distorted rock-salt lattice, the corresponding amorphous phase remains still poorly understood. Here, we show that 119Sn Mössbauer spectroscopy and angular constraint counting of simulated structures can provide a quantitative measure of the sp3 tetrahedral fraction of Ge or Si cation in amorphous phase-change binary tellurides GexTe1−x and SixTe1−x . This represents the first quantitative estimate of such local structures, and reveals the fraction to be nearly 50%, while also revealing implications for the phase-change mechanism itself.