AgInSbTe
Encyclopedia
AgInSbTe, or Silver-Indium-Antimony-Tellurium, is a phase change material from the group of chalcogenide glass
es, used in rewritable optical disc
s (such as rewritable CDs
) and phase-change memory
applications. It is a quaternary compound of silver
, indium
, antimony
, and tellurium.
During writing, the material is first erased, initialized into its crystalline state, with long, lower-intensity laser irradiation. The material heats up to its crystallization temperature, but not up to its melting point, and crystallizes in a metastable face-centered cubic structure. Then the information is written on the crystalline phase, by heating spots of it with short (<10 ns), high-intensity laser pulses; the material locally melts and is quickly cooled, remaining in the amorphous phase. As the amorphous phase has lower reflectivity than the crystalline phase, the bitstream can be recorded as "dark" amorphous spots on the crystalline background. At low linear velocities, clusters of crystalline material can exist in the amorphous spots. http://jjap.ipap.jp/link?JJAP/44/3042
Another similar material is GeSbTe
, offering a lower linear density, but with higher overwrite cycles by 1-2 orders of magnitude. It is used in pit-and-groove recording formats, often in rewritable DVDs
.
Chalcogenide glass
A chalcogenide glass is a glass containing one or more chalcogenide elements. These are Group 16 in the periodic table e.g. sulfur, selenium or tellurium. Such glasses are covalently bonded materials and may be classified as network solids. In effect, the entire glass matrix acts like an...
es, used in rewritable optical disc
Optical disc
In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc is a flat, usually circular disc which encodes binary data in the form of pits and lands on a special material on one of its flat surfaces...
s (such as rewritable CDs
CD-RW
A CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
) and phase-change memory
Phase-change memory
Phase-change memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory. PRAMs exploit the unique behavior of chalcogenide glass. Heat produced by the passage of an electric current switches this material between two states, crystalline and amorphous...
applications. It is a quaternary compound of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, indium
Indium
Indium is a chemical element with the symbol In and atomic number 49. This rare, very soft, malleable and easily fusible post-transition metal is chemically similar to gallium and thallium, and shows the intermediate properties between these two...
, antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
, and tellurium.
During writing, the material is first erased, initialized into its crystalline state, with long, lower-intensity laser irradiation. The material heats up to its crystallization temperature, but not up to its melting point, and crystallizes in a metastable face-centered cubic structure. Then the information is written on the crystalline phase, by heating spots of it with short (<10 ns), high-intensity laser pulses; the material locally melts and is quickly cooled, remaining in the amorphous phase. As the amorphous phase has lower reflectivity than the crystalline phase, the bitstream can be recorded as "dark" amorphous spots on the crystalline background. At low linear velocities, clusters of crystalline material can exist in the amorphous spots. http://jjap.ipap.jp/link?JJAP/44/3042
Another similar material is GeSbTe
GeSbTe
GeSbTe, Germanium-Antimony-Tellurium or GST is a phase change material from the group of chalcogenide glasses, used in rewritable optical discs and phase-change memory applications. Its recrystallization time is 20 nanoseconds, allowing bitrates of up to 35 Mbit/s to be written, and direct...
, offering a lower linear density, but with higher overwrite cycles by 1-2 orders of magnitude. It is used in pit-and-groove recording formats, often in rewritable DVDs
DVD-RW
A DVD-RW disc is a rewritable optical disc with equal storage capacity to a DVD-R, typically 4.7 GB. The format was developed by Pioneer in November 1999 and has been approved by the DVD Forum. The smaller Mini DVD-RW holds 1.46 GB, with a diameter of 8 cm.The primary advantage of DVD-RW over...
.