Discipline: Nanoscience
Subcategory: Nanoscience
Mohammed Abdi - Benedict College
The need for storing information has been increasing in our technologically advanced society, for the information to be useful it has to be mapped as (binary) data to be stored in vast quantities and rapidly retrievable at an economical rate. Recently it has been reported that Phase Change Materials are being used in different storage applications such as the hard drive (HD) and rewritable optical data storage (Blu-ray disks (BD). PCMs are mostly alloys of group V or VI elements that absorb and release thermal energy during the process of melting and freezing. PCMs can be reversibly switched between an amorphous and crystalline state with corresponding contrast in optical and electronic transport properties. These novel materials have been proposed to be the most promising substances for data storage applications. These research emphases on the study of the thermoelectric properties (characteristics of, resulting from, or using electrical phenomena occurring in conjunction with flow of heat) of novel phasechange materials (PCM), specifically Ge2Sb2Te5. We obtained information about the purity of our sample including the structure (using X-ray Diffraction), reflectance (using Ultra Violet -Visible Spectroscopy), elemental analysis or chemical characterization (Using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy) and external morphology (texture) (using Scanning Electron Microscopy) of the sample. Designed a wave function for Arbitrary/ Function generator and a circuit setup to control the heaters embedded on the sample holder in order to confirm the flow of temperature from both sides of the sample is accurate. Factors affecting the thermoelectric properties of phase change memory are also discussed.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): NNSA/ DOE Consortium for Materials and Energy Studies Award No. DE-NA0002630, NSF Grant # HD-1436222, HBCU-UP(I)
Faculty Advisor: Ming Yin,