An Improvement of the Thermal Stability of SnTe through Nitrogen Doping

Nitrogen doping is applied to improve the thermal stability of SnTe. The crystallization temperature Tc of SnTe is below room temperature, which can be elevated to 216°C by 7.65at.% nitrogen doping. Nitrogen doping results in the formation of SnNx in the nitrogen doped SnTe (N-SnTe) materials, which hinders the movement of atoms and suppresses the crystallization, leading to a better thermal stability. The crystallization activation energy (Ea) and data retention for ten years of 7.65at.% N-SnTe are 1.89eV and 81°C, respectively. Moreover, the voltage pulses have successfully triggered the SET and RESET operations of the N-SnTe based device at the voltage of 0.9 V and 2.6 V. The good thermal stability and reversible phase-change ability have proved the potential of N-SnTe for phase-change memory application.