Combinatorial Synthesis and Screening of Chalcogenide Materials for Data Storage

For more than 15 years researchers at the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton have been developing novel compositions of chalcogenide glasses for a wide range of optical applications. Recently this expertise has been combined with those of Ilika Technologies Ltd and the School of Chemistry to focus on the development of enhanced chalcogenide materials for OUM and optical data storage applications. In our talk, we report on our high throughput methodology which allows rapid, reproducible and comprehensive mapping of phase diagrams and screening of optical, thermal and electrical properties. These procedures were initially applied to Ge:Sb:Te compositions where we were able to synthesis and analyse over 4000 sample points spanning the entire ternary system. In order to process such large volumes of compositions, novel screening techniques and strategies have been employed. We are applying this methodology to other novel compositions and our findings are reported.