Elemental electrical switch enabling phase segregation–free operation

Single element switch Phase-change materials are attractive for computer memory and switching, in part due to their small size and fast switching speeds. However, competitive materials frequently have many elements, which decreases the switching reliability. Shen et al . built a pure tellurium device that is capable of fast switching through a phase transformation (see the Perspective by Calarco and Arciprete). Unlike many other phase-change materials, the change in resistance happens because the tellurium melts during the switching process. The resulting device can be switched 100 million times before failure and is an appealing route for avoiding the issues from multi-element phase-change materials. —BG