Ultra-low power phase change memory with carbon nanotube interconnects

Phase-change materials (PCM) like Ge₂Sb₂Te ₅ (GST) have been proposed for non-volatile memory and reconfigurable electronics [1, 2]. One of the drawbacks associated with this technology is the relatively high (∼0.5 mA) programming currents required [3]. In this work, we utilize carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as nano-scaled interconnects to induce reversible switching in very small GST bits (∼10 nm). This lowers the programming currents to <10 μA, two orders of magnitude less than state-of-the-art PCM devices. Our work provides a novel method to build very low power non-volatile memory. It also shows that GST can be used to "repair" broken CNT connections, paving the way toward reconfigurable CNT electronics.