Photoinduced Nonvolatile Displacive Transformation and Optical Switching in MnTe Semiconductors

MnTe is considered a promising candidate for next-generation phase change materials owing to the reversible and nonvolatile phase transformation between its α and β’ phases by irradiation of a nanosecond laser or application of a pulse voltage. In this work, for a faster phase control of MnTe, the response of metastable β-MnTe thin films to femtosecond (fs) laser irradiation was investigated. Using ultrafast optical spectroscopy, we inferred transient phase transformation. Moreover, with an increase in laser-excitation fluence, a nonvolatile structural change from the β to α phase was experimentally observed by Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy without ablation damage on the sample. The observation results strongly suggest that the fs-laser-induced β → α phase transformation proceeds through the nucleation and growth mode without a large temperature increase.