2016/05/26 by Marco Malvestuto, Antonio Caretta, Barbara Casarin +11 · 7 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Bond #Business #Chalcogenide Semiconductor Thin Films #Chemical physics #Condensed matter physics #Dynamics (music) #Engineering physics #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Materials science #Optics #Optoelectronics #Phase (matter) #Phase change #Phase-change materials and chalcogenides #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Superlattice #Ultrashort pulse #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.94.094310
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 94(9) (American Physical Society)
arxiv created 2016/05/26 · openalex publication_date 2016/09/29 · arxiv updated 2016/10/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A long-standing question for avant-garde data storage technology concerns the nature of the ultrafast photoinduced phase transformations in the wide class of chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs). Overall, a comprehensive understanding of the microstructural evolution and the relevant kinetics mechanisms accompanying the out-of-equilibrium phases is still missing. Here, after overheating a phase-change chalcogenide superlattice by an ultrafast laser pulse, we indirectly track the lattice relaxation by time resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy (tr-XAS) with a sub-ns time resolution. The approach to the tr-XAS experimental results reported in this work provides an atomistic insight of the mechanism that takes place during the cooling process; meanwhile a first-principles model mimicking the microscopic distortions accounts for a straightforward representation of the observed dynamics. Finally, we envisage that our approach can be applied in future studies addressing the role of dynamical structural strain in PCMs.