Influence of Sn/Bi doping on the phase change characteristics of $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$

Rewritable optical disk is one of the essential data storage media in these days, which takes advantage of the different optical properties in the amorphous and crystalline states of phase change materials. As well known, data transfer rate is one of the most important parameter of the phase change optical disks, which is mostly limited by the crystallization speed of recording media. Therefore, we doped Sn/Bi to $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ alloy in order to improve the crystallization speed and investigated the dependence of phase change characteristics on Sn/Bi doping concentration. The Sn/Bi doped $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ thin film was deposited by RF magnetron co-sputtering system and phase change characteristics were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), static tester, UV-visible spectrophotometer, electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Optimum doping concentration of Bi and Sn were 5${\~}$6 at.$\%$ and the minimum time for crystallization was below than 20 ns. This improvement is correlated with the simple crystalline structure of Sn/Bi doped $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ and the reduced activation barrier arising from Sn/Bi doping. The results indicate that Sn/Bi might play an important role in the transformation kinetics of phase change materials..