{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/11983"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/11983","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Transient Phase-Change Effect in Phase-Change Memory Devices","abstract":"Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) is one of the next-generation memories with the most potential due to its many good characteristics, such as nonvolatility, high endurance and long data retention. PCRAM has the potential to replace flash memory, which has limited durability and speed. PCRAM is based on phase change from a high-resistance amorphous state to a low-resistance crystalline state and vice versa in nanosecond timescale. However, the mechanism by which phase change occurs is still unknown. This work introduces a transient electrical method to relate the phase change phenomenon to the mechanism behind it. In this thesis, PCRAM devices were fabricated with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and AgInSbTe, which are well known nucleation and growth dominated phase change materials. The transient electrical waveform during crystallization was identified as a method to characterize the phase change phenomenon in the device and provide a link to the mechanism behind the phase change effect. Two time periods, delay time and current recovery time, were discovered during this transient electric analysis, which relate to nucleation and growth of the phase change material. This method could potentially be used across different device structures and phase change materials to identify their effect on the phase change mechanism.","abstract_html":"Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) is one of the next-generation memories with the most potential due to its many good characteristics, such as nonvolatility, high endurance and long data retention. PCRAM has the potential to replace flash memory, which has limited durability and speed. PCRAM is based on phase change from a high-resistance amorphous state to a low-resistance crystalline state and vice versa in nanosecond timescale. However, the mechanism by which phase change occurs is still unknown. This work introduces a transient electrical method to relate the phase change phenomenon to the mechanism behind it. In this thesis, PCRAM devices were fabricated with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and AgInSbTe, which are well known nucleation and growth dominated phase change materials. The transient electrical waveform during crystallization was identified as a method to characterize the phase change phenomenon in the device and provide a link to the mechanism behind the phase change effect. Two time periods, delay time and current recovery time, were discovered during this transient electric analysis, which relate to nucleation and growth of the phase change material. This method could potentially be used across different device structures and phase change materials to identify their effect on the phase change mechanism.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Yeo, Eng Guan"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Electrical and Computer Engineering","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Adesida, Ilesanmi"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2009,"date_issued":"2009-06-01T16:05:18Z","date_published":"2009-06-01T16:05:18Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:52Z","subjects":["phase-change","transient effect","Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM)"],"languages":[],"rights":["Copyright 2009 Eng Guan Yeo"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/11983","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Adesida, Ilesanmi"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Yeo, Eng Guan"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2009-06-01T16:05:18Z","2009-5"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Electrical and Computer Engineering"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["phase-change","transient effect","Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM)"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2009 Eng Guan Yeo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/11983"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) is one of the next-generation memories with the most potential due to its many good characteristics, such as nonvolatility, high endurance and long data retention. PCRAM has the potential to replace flash memory, which has limited durability and speed. PCRAM is based on phase change from a high-resistance amorphous state to a low-resistance crystalline state and vice versa in nanosecond timescale. However, the mechanism by which phase change occurs is still unknown. This work introduces a transient electrical method to relate the phase change phenomenon to the mechanism behind it. In this thesis, PCRAM devices were fabricated with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and AgInSbTe, which are well known nucleation and growth dominated phase change materials. The transient electrical waveform during crystallization was identified as a method to characterize the phase change phenomenon in the device and provide a link to the mechanism behind the phase change effect. Two time periods, delay time and current recovery time, were discovered during this transient electric analysis, which relate to nucleation and growth of the phase change material. 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PCRAM has the potential to replace flash memory, which has limited durability and speed. PCRAM is based on phase change from a high-resistance amorphous state to a low-resistance crystalline state and vice versa in nanosecond timescale. However, the mechanism by which phase change occurs is still unknown. This work introduces a transient electrical method to relate the phase change phenomenon to the mechanism behind it. In this thesis, PCRAM devices were fabricated with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and AgInSbTe, which are well known nucleation and growth dominated phase change materials. The transient electrical waveform during crystallization was identified as a method to characterize the phase change phenomenon in the device and provide a link to the mechanism behind the phase change effect. Two time periods, delay time and current recovery time, were discovered during this transient electric analysis, which relate to nucleation and growth of the phase change material. This method could potentially be used across different device structures and phase change materials to identify their effect on the phase change mechanism.","Item deposited via ETD process 2009-06-01.","Made available in DSpace on 2009-06-01T16:05:18Z (GMT). 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