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The mechanism of texture formation during crystallization process of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 thin films
Author(s) -
Yin Qixun,
Chen Leng
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
crystal research and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.377
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1521-4079
pISSN - 0232-1300
DOI - 10.1002/crat.201600243
Subject(s) - crystallization , materials science , thin film , annealing (glass) , crystallography , grain growth , texture (cosmology) , lattice (music) , grain size , composite material , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , chemistry , image (mathematics) , physics , artificial intelligence , computer science , acoustics , engineering
In this work, we determined the grain growth mode and texture formation process experimentally and theoretically in crystallization process of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 thin films, which were prepared by ion beam sputtering using Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 alloy target. Experiment results demonstrated that crystalline grains had a trend of island growth during annealing, the texture components of cube {100}<001> and rotation cube {100}<011> are present in 250 °C annealed thin films, and {0001} basal texture component was produced in 400 °C annealed thin films. Theoretical analysis proved the mechanism and driving forces of grain growth and cubic texture formation: grains gathered in the basal surface as island because of large lattice mismatch, meanwhile, the preferred orientation of thin films was triggered by the minimization of lattice mismatch strain energy. The calculation results were in conformance with the experimental results. Researches about grain growth mode and texture formation of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 thin films may provide an advice to increase the crystallization rate of phase change material.