Crystallization characteristics of nitrogen-doped Sb2Te3 films for PRAM application

The Sb2Te3 film is an attractive candidate for phase change random access memory (PRAM) due to its rapid crystallization speed. However, the Sb2Te3 film has unstable amorphous phase. In order to improve the phase stability and easy reamorphization, the nitrogen-doped Sb2Te3 films were proposed. The characteristics of nitrogen-doped Sb2Te3 films were investigated using the secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), 4-point probe technique, X-ray diffraction and static test. The nitrogen doping caused the increase of crystallization temperature and sheet resistance of the Sb2Te3 films. Furthermore, the crystallization speed of nitrogen-doped Sb2Te3 film was superior to the Ge2Sb2Te5 film.