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Many reinforced concrete structures have been constructed at the offshore in Korea and those are exposed in environments for long period. Due to that, the reinforcement of the structure faces possibility of corrosion by the salt damage. Such corrosions are effects on the bond performance between concrete and reinforcing bar as well as the performance of the structure. In this study, the performance of RC structure has been investigated when the reinforcing bars are totally bonded and unbonded in the structure. Through the experimental tests and finite element analyses of beam-column joint with bond and unbonded reinforcing bar, the energy dissipation capacity, strength, and crack distribution are compared and discussed.

A new method of evaluating crystallization activation energy of Ge2Sb2Te5 is proposed by in situ resistance measurement under isothermal annealing conditions. Linear relationship between logarithmic time and reciprocal temperature in modified Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov equation is derived under the assumption that proportion of resistance drop from the initial value is closely related to crystal fraction. Crystallization activation energy thus obtained is 2.67 eV. Numerical calculation was conducted to manifest the validity of this analysis based on percolation model. Moreover, crystallization behavior of patterned single-line structure of Ge2Sb2Te5 was evaluated, and the scaling effect of increasing activation energy with decreasing line width was observed.

Amorphous Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 clusters with a size of 20 nm, self-enclosed by a thin layer of TiO x , were obtained by cosputtering Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 and TiO 2 targets at room temperature with the aim of reducing the reset current for phase change random access memory applications. Eutectic decomposition during the deposition caused a phase separation of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 and TiO x . The temperature-dependent resistance change results showed that the activation energy for crystallization increased from 2.44 ± 0.76 to 3.84 ± 1.43 eV in the Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 film. The set resistance can be tuned within an acceptable range, and the reliability of this microstructure during repetitive laser melt-quenching cycles was tested.

The chemical instability of line patterned Ge2Sb2Te5 was studied by transmission electron microscopy after electrically inducing melt and solidification. Compositional analysis showed elemental separation of Te to the anode side, while Ge and Sb mutually separated at the cathode side. Such elemental separation of Ge2Sb2Te5 is explained by the electric field effects and thermodynamic driving forces.

We report the breakdown behavior of a patterned Ge2Sb2Te5 multiline structure during the voltage-driven electric stress biasing. Scanning Auger microscope analysis shows that the breakdown process accompanies with a phase separation of Ge2Sb2Te5 into an Sb, Te-rich phase and a Ge-rich phase. The phase separation is explained by the incongruent melting of Ge2Sb2Te5 based on the pseudobinary phase diagram between Sb2Te3 and GeTe. It is claimed that this phase separation behavior by incongruent melting provides one of the plausible mechanisms of the device failure in a phase change memory.

The phase change material Ge2Sb2Te5 is widely investigated for use in nonvolatile memories. It has been reported that the crystallization speed depends on the thermal history, indicating that structural differences exist between amorphous states. The authors apply fluctuation electron microscopy to quantify differences in the nanometer-scale structural order between several amorphous states of Ge2Sb2Te5. All as-deposited films are found to contain ordered regions. Thermal annealing below the crystallization threshold increases the nanoscale order, and such samples crystallize slightly more rapidly. The authors hypothesize that the nanoscale ordered regions act as the nuclei for crystallization, with the largest regions being the most significant.