Measurement of crystal growth velocity in a melt-quenched phase-change material

Phase-change materials are the basis for next-generation memory devices and reconfigurable electronics, but fundamental understanding of the unconventional kinetics of their phase transitions has been hindered by challenges in the experimental quantification. Here we obtain deeper understanding based on the temperature dependence of the crystal growth velocity of the phase-change material AgInSbTe, as derived from laser-based time-resolved reflectivity measurements. We observe a strict Arrhenius behaviour for the growth velocity over eight orders of magnitude (from ~10 nm s−1 to ~1 m s−1). This can be attributed to the formation of a glass at elevated temperatures because of rapid quenching of the melt. Further, the temperature dependence of the viscosity is derived, which reveals that the supercooled liquid phase must have an extremely high fragility (>100). Finally, the new experimental evidence leads to an interpretation, which comprehensively explains existing data from various different experiments reported in literature.