Threshold switching mechanism by high-field energy gain in the hopping transport of chalcogenide glasses

Chalcogenide glasses are widely used in phase-change nonvolatile memories and in optical recording media for their ability to rapidly change their structure to crystalline, thus obtaining different electrical resistance and optical reflectivity. Chalcogenide glasses universally display threshold switching, that is a sudden, reversible transition from a high-resistivity state to a low-resistivity state observed in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic. Since threshold switching controls the operating voltage and speed of phase-change memories, the predictability of the switching voltage, current, and speed is of critical importance for selecting the proper chalcogenide material for memory applications. Although threshold switching has long been recognized to be an electronic process with an intimate relation to localized states, its detailed physical mechanism is still not clear. In this work, threshold switching is explained by the field-induced energy increase in electrons in their hopping transport, moderated by the energy relaxation due to phonon-electron interaction. The energy increase leads to an enhancement of conductivity and a collapse of the electric field within the amorphous chalcogenide layer, accounting for the observed negative differential resistance at switching. Threshold switching is found to obey to a constant electrical-power condition. The proposed model generally applies to low-mobility semiconductors featuring a deep Fermi level and hopping-type conduction, and can predict the thickness, temperature, and material dependence of threshold voltage and current.