Simulation of ultrahigh storage densities in nanoscale patterned probe phase change memories

Phase Change Memory (PCM), based on the reversible transitions of chalcogenides such as Ge
2
Sb
2
Te
5
(GST) between a high resistance amorphous state (binary ‘0’) and low resistance crystalline state (binary ‘1’), is one of the leading contenders to complement or even replace existing technologies such as Flash, DRAM and HDD [1]. This is attributed to its size scalability (sub-10nm [2-4]), ultrahigh storage densities (Tb/in
²
[5-6]), fast programming speeds (picoseconds [7]), and potentially low programming currents (∼μA [3]).