Chalcogenide-Nanowire-Based Phase Change Memory

We report fabrication of phase change random access memory (PRAM) using nanowires (NWs) of GeTe and In
₂
Se
₃
. NWs were grown by a vapor-liquid-solid technique and ranged from 40 to 80 nm in diameter and several micrometers long. A dynamic switching ratio (on/off ratio) of 2200 and 2 times 10
⁵
was realized for GeTe and indium selenide devices, respectively. The programming power for the RESET operation is only tens of microwatts compared to the milliwatt power levels required by the conventional thin-film-based PRAM.