International Business Machines Corporation

Louis Zuoguang Liu

Juntao Li

Amlan Majumdar

The density of deuterium or hydrogen within phase change material (PCM) of a PCM memory cell reduces the active defects in the amorphous phase of the PCM by passivating dangling bonds, which results in the PCM becoming easier to nucleate during the SET process of the PCM memory cell. Resultingly, the addition of deuterium or hydrogen within the PCM relatively increases the SET programming voltage window of the PCM memory cell compared with a similar PCM cell without.

Phase change material including deuterium

A mushroom memory cell may be formed by depositing a second dielectric layer on top of a first dielectric layer and a heater, depositing a hard mask on top of the second dielectric layer, performing a directional reactive-ion etching to remove an exposed portion of the second dielectric layer, performing a lateral etching to remove a portion of the second dielectric layer under the hard mask, performing directional deposition of a phase change material (PCM) over the heater, depositing a covering dielectric over the PCM, performing a second directional etching to expose a top surface of the PCM, and depositing a top electrode on the surface of the PCM.

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Schenectady, NY, United States of America

Louis Zuoguang Liu