Studies of the kinetics of the crystallization of amorphous chalcogenide films

E. Kotulanova¹, P. Bezdicka¹, T. Grygar¹, T. Wagner², J. Gutwirt²

¹Institute of Inorganic Chemistry AS CR, Rez, 250 68

²University of Pardubice, Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Legion’s Sq. 565, 53210 Pardubice, Czech Republic

evulekotule@iic.cas.cz

Keywords: microdiffraction, crystallization, chalcogenides

Amorphous chalcogenide films (amorphous chalcogenides of Ge, As, Sb, Te, Ag, In and other elements, with binary or multi-component compositions) have many potentional and current applications in microoptics, photonic crystals and optical memories. Optically or electrically recorded memories are currently ‘hot’ scientific topic. The recording mechanism is an optically or electrically induced reversible phase transition between amorphous and crystalline states or reversible local change in the films composition.

Amorphous films of different composition (Ag_x(Sb_0.33 S_0.67)_100-x, where x was between 0 and 25 at.% Ag, resp. Ag_x(As_0.33 S_0.67)_100-x, where x was between 0 and 35 at.% Ag), were prepared by pulsed laser deposition and optically induced silver dissolution into the binary chalcogenides deposited by vacuum evaporation techniques. Optically induced crystallization was demonstrated in films and the kinetics of the crystallization were studied by powder X-ray microdiffraction (micro-pXRD). A microdiffractometer with monocapillary primary optics and x,y,z-stage enables analysis from spot with a diameter of 0.15 mm.