Large displacement of germanium atoms in crystalline GeSbTe

Shamoto, Shinichi; Yamada, Noboru*; Matsunaga, Toshiyuki*; Proffen, T.*; Richardson, J. W.*; Chung, J.-H.*; Egami, Takeshi*

Applied Physics Letters, 86(8), p.081904_1 - 081904_3, 2005/02

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1861976

Local structure of NaCl-type crystalline GeSbTe has been studied by the atomic pair distribution function analysis of pulsed neutron powder diffraction data. We have found the large displacement of germanium atoms in this crystalline phase. Usually, such a large lattice distortion has disadvantage for the electric conductivity. The electronic band structure, however, implies that this significant distortion in addition to the lattice defect at Na site reduces only thermal conductivity, while the highly ordered tellurium atoms at Cl site keep high electric conductivity.