Amorphous Sb2Te3 nanowires: Synthesis, characterization and size-dependent phase transition behavior

Understanding the phase transition behavior of phase-change (PC) material with respect to the scaling effect is essential for the application of PC materials. Among all the PC materials, SbTe binary plays a significant role in the well-known Ge-Sb-Te system. Here we have used an unconventional and cost-effective method to fabricate a wide range of prototypical Sb₂Te₃ amorphous nanowires (18–220 nm in diameter) using templated electrodeposition. Compositional, morphological, and structural characterization of the amorphous nanowires were performed, and the crystallization temperature of in-template nanowires was measured using a four-probe resistivity meter. We report that the crystallization temperature of amorphous Sb₂Te₃ nanowires can be tuned with respect to the diameter of the nanowires and a significant increase was observed for the nanowires with diameters ≤35 nm. Our study sheds light on the size-dependent phase transition behavior of PC NWs with implications for further advancement of the PC memory technology.