Characterization of electrical contacts for phase change memory cells

Advancements in integrated circuits demand an increasing requirement for a faster, low-cost non-volatile memory with improved scaling potential. Phase change memory is an important emerging memory technology qualifying these requirements. With dimensional scaling, the contacts are scaled by F2, therefore knowledge of the contact properties becomes even more important. This thesis deals with the characterization of electrical contacts for phase change memory cells. An electrical contact in this respect refers to the interfaces formed in the memory cell, i.e. the metal electrode to phase change material (PCM) contacts in the crystalline and in the amorphous state.