High-Stability and Low-Noise Multilevel Switching in In3SbTe2 Material for Phase Change Photonic Memory Applications

Abstract

Herein, eight uniform optical states (3 bit) are demonstrated by irradiating nanosecond laser pulses on thin In3SbTe2 films having high stability (260 °C), revealing at least 1% reflectivity contrast between any two consecutive states with strikingly low noise variation of 0.18% at each level, which is almost a 50% lower value compared to Ge2Sb2Te5 and AgInSbTe materials, revealing the two times enhanced signal-to-noise ratio of the In3SbTe2 material. Furthermore, a systematic structural evolution during multilevel switching is investigated using confocal Raman spectroscopic studies. The experimental findings demonstrate low-noise yet highly stable multilevel switching toward the development of reliable phase change photonic memory devices. © 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH