Ultrafast optical manipulation of atomic arrangements in chalcogenide alloy memory materials

A class of chalcogenide alloy materials that shows significant changes in optical properties upon an amorphous-to-crystalline phase transition has lead to development of large data capacities in modern optical data storage. Among chalcogenide phase-change materials, Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) is most widely used because of its reliability. We use a pair of femtosecond light pulses to demonstrate the ultrafast optical manipulation of atomic arrangements from tetrahedral (amorphous) to octahedral (crystalline) Ge-coordination in GST superlattices. Depending on the parameters of the second pump-pulse, ultrafast nonthermal phase-change occurred within only few-cycles (~ 1 ps) of the coherent motion corresponding to a GeTe4 local vibration. Using the ultrafast switch in chalcogenide alloy memory could lead to a major paradigm shift in memory devices beyond the current generation of silicon-based flash-memory.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Optics Expres

Ultrafast dephasing of coherent optical phonons in atomically controlled GeTe/Sb2_{2}Te3_{3} superlattices

Femtosecond dynamics of coherent optical phonons in GeTe/Sb$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ superlattices (SLs), a new class of semiconductor SLs with three different states, have been investigated by using a reflection-type pump-probe technique at various lattice temperatures. The time-resolved transient reflectivity (TR) obtained in as-grown SLs exhibits the coherent A$_{1}$ optical modes at 5.10 THz and 3.78 THz, while only the single A$_{1}$ mode at 3.68 THz is observed in annealed SLs. The decay rate of the A$_{1}$ mode in annealed SLs is strongly temperature dependent, while that in as-grown SLs is not temperature dependent. This result indicates that the damping of the coherent A$_{1}$ phonons in amorphous SLs is governed by the phonon-defect (vacancy) scattering rather than the anharmonic phonon-phonon coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Thermal conductivity of GeTe/Sb2_{2}Te3_{3} superlattices measured by coherent phonon spectroscopy

We report on evaluation of lattice thermal conductivity of GeTe/Sb$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ superlattice (SL) by using femtosecond coherent phonon spectroscopy at various lattice temperatures. The time-resolved transient reflectivity obtained in amorphous and crystalline GeTe/Sb$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ SL films exhibits the coherent $A_{1}$ optical modes at terahertz (THz) frequencies with picoseconds dephasing time. Based on the Debye theory, we calculate the lattice thermal conductivity, including scattering by grain boundary and point defect, umklapp process, and phonon resonant scattering. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity in amorphous SL is less temperature dependent, being attributed to dominant phonon-defect scattering.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Applied Physics Letter

Picosecond strain dynamics in Ge2_{2}Sb2_{2}Te5_{5} monitored by time-resolved x-ray diffraction

Coherent phonons (CP) generated by laser pulses on the femtosecond scale have been proposed as a means to achieve ultrafast, non-thermal switching in phase-change materials such as Ge$_{2}$Sb$_{2}$Te$_{5}$(GST). Here we use ultrafast optical pump pulses to induce coherent acoustic phonons and stroboscopically measure the corresponding lattice distortions in GST using 100 ps x-ray pulses from the ESRF storage ring. A linear-chain model provides a good description of the observed changes in the diffraction signal, however, the magnitudes of the measured shifts are too large to be explained by thermal effects alone implying the presence of transient non-equilibrium electron heating in addition to temperature driven expansion. The information on the movement of atoms during the excitation process can lead to greater insight into the possibilities of using CP-induced phase-transitions in GST.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. B, in pres