Cu-doped Sb-Te system phase change material, phase change memory and preparation method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11807798-B2
Application number	US-202117928932-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 22, 2021
Priority date	Dec 15, 2021
Publication date	Nov 7, 2023
Grant date	Nov 7, 2023

Abstract

A Cu-doped Sb 2 Te 3 system phase change material, a phase change memory, and a preparation method thereof belonging to the technical field of micro-nano electronics are provided. A Sb—Te system phase change material is doped with Cu element to form Cu 3 Te 2 bonds with both tetrahedral and octahedral structures in the case of local enrichment of Cu. The strongly bonded tetrahedral structure improves the amorphous stability and data retention capability of the Sb—Te system phase change material, and the octahedral structure of the crystal configuration improves the crystallization speed of the Sb—Te system phase change material. A phase change memory including the phase change material and a preparation method of the phase change material are also provided. Through the phase change material provided by the invention, both the speed and amorphous stability of the device are improved, and the comprehensive performance of the phase change memory is also enhanced.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material, wherein Cu is doped atomically in a Sb—Te system material unevenly to form a local Cu-rich region, a Cu 3 Te 2 bond is formed in the local Cu-rich region, and the Cu 3 Te 2 bond refers to bonding of Cu atoms and Te atoms to form a substance having tetrahedral and octahedral lattice arrangements.

2. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 1 , wherein a chemical formula of the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material is: Cu x (Sb—Te) 1-x , where x represents an atomic percentage of Cu element, and 5%<x<40%.

3. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 2 , wherein the Sb—Te system material comprises one or more of SbTe, Sb 2 Te, Sb 4 Te, and Sb 2 Te 3 .

4. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 3 , wherein the Sb—Te system material is Sb 2 Te 3 , and the atomic percentage of the Cu element in the entire Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material is 20%.

5. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 3 , wherein in the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material, in an amorphous state, the Cu atoms combine with the Te atoms to form Cu 3 Te 2 having both tetrahedral and octahedral structures.

6. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 4 , wherein the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material is in the form of a thin film, and a thickness of the thin film is 5 nm to 300 nm.

7. The Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 6 , wherein in the Cu 3 Te 2 bond, bond angles formed by Cu atoms and Te atoms are 90° and 109°.

8. A phase change memory comprising the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 4 , comprising a bottom electrode, an isolation layer, a phase change memory material thin film layer, and a top electrode stacked in sequence.

9. A method for preparing the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 1 , comprising: performing a magnetron sputtering, a chemical vapor deposition, an atomic layer deposition, an electroplating, or an electron beam evaporation to prepare the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material, and
when the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material is obtained by the magnetron sputtering, the magnetron sputtering is Sb target, Te target, and Cu target co-sputtering, Sb 2 Te 3 target and Cu target co-sputtering, or Cu-doped Sb 2 Te 3 alloy target sputtering.

10. The method for preparing the Cu-doped Sb—Te system phase change material according to claim 9 , wherein when preparing a Cu—Sb 2 Te 3 phase change memory material, performing the Sb 2 Te 3 target and the Cu target are co-sputtered to obtain the Cu—Sb 2 Te 3 phase change memory material, and a doping amount of Cu element is controlled by controlling a power of elemental Cu sputtering to control numbers of tetrahedral structures and octahedral structures in an amorphous state of the Cu—Sb 2 Te 3 phase change memory material to regulate a crystallization temperature and a crystallization speed of the Cu—Sb 2 Te 3 phase change memory material.

Assignees

• Univ Huazhong Science Tech

Inventors

• Cheng Xiaomin
• Zeng Yuntao
• Miao Xiangshui

Classifications

• C09K5/063 Primary

  Materials absorbing or liberating heat during crystallisation; Heat storage materials · CPC title

• C23C14/0623

  Sulfides, selenides or tellurides · CPC title

• C23C14/352

  using more than one target (C23C14/56 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H10B63/10

  Phase change RAM [PCRAM, PRAM] devices · CPC title

• H10N70/8828

  Tellurides, e.g. GeSbTe · CPC title