181 Characteristics of Nitrogen-Doped Antimony Telluride Thin Films for Phase-Change Random Access Memory

The nitrogen-doped Sb₂Te₃ thin films with the variation of nitrogen concentration of 0–7% were prepared by radio-frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering method. Nitrogen doping effect on the electrical properties and structure of Sb₂Te₃ thin film was investigated. It was found that nitrogen doping significantly increases the crystallization temperature and resistivity of Sb₂Te₃ film. The root-mean-square (rms) roughness values of the films evaluated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed an obvious decrease with nitrogen doping. Compared with the conventional Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) film, nitrogen-doped Sb₂Te₃ films exhibit lower melting temperature and more better data retention, which is beneficial to low power consumption applications of phase-change random access memory (PCRAM).