Transfer of knowledge to industry
Département des Plateformes Technologiques (LETI)
Laboratoire
01-02-2020
PsD-DRT-20-0031
Resistive Phase-Change Memories (PCMs) are the best candidates in order to replace Flash memories, realization of storage class memories (SCMs) as well as neuromorphic applications. Nevertheless, PCMs exhibit certain limits hindering their wide use as non-volatile memory in the next future. The replacement of the bulk GeSbTe PCM by van der Waals layered GeSbTe superlattices in iPCMs (interfacial PCMs)is a very promising solution. Although the superior performance of iPCMs is well established, the origin of the resistive transition mechanism upon application of electric pulses remains unclear. This is mainly due to the lack of a robust description of their structure. Recently, we have been able to give a first description at the atomic scale (P. Kowalczyk et al., Small, 14, 24, 1704514, 2018). However, there is still a lot of work to understand and control the atomic structure regarding the electronic properties in order to finally evidence the physical mechanism behind the resistive transition in iPCMs. In that context, the work of this post-doctorate will consist of supporting the LETI's iPCMs team (material / physics, microelectronic devices, simulations) by performing and manging the analysis of the electronic transport properties of prototypical iPCM systems in thin film layers as well as afetr integration into state of the art memory devices. This will involve the realization and/or participation in electrical measurements (resistivity, Hall, iPCMs memories ...) and nanocharacterization of prototypical iPCMs stacks (XRD, STEM-HAADF, Raman / FTIR ...) on the Nanocharacterization platform of CEA Grenoble (PFNC). All this will then serve as a basis for AIMD simulations of the impact of an electric field on such vdW GeSbTe structures in order to be able for the first time to highlight the origin of the electronic transition in iPCMs devices.
