Carbon-doped GeTe Phase-Change Memory featuring remarkable RESET current reduction

In this paper we present a study of Phase-Change non-volatile Memory (PCM) devices integrating carbon-doped GeTe as chalcogenide material. Carbon-doped GeTe, named GeTeC, remarkably lowers the RESET current and features very good data retention properties as well. In particular, GeTe PCM with 10% carbon inclusions (named GeTeC10%) yields about 30% of RESET current reduction with respect to pure GeTe and GST. Furthermore, our GeTeC10% memory cells are expected to guarantee a 10-years-lifetime-temperature of about 127°C, which is one of the highest ever reported for PCM. The outstanding properties of GeTeC make this material promising for non-volatile memory technologies.