Experimental and theoretical investigations of laser-induced crystallization and amorphization in phase-change optical recording media

We describe the numerical procedure for calculating three-dimensional profiles of temperature in a multilayer stack illuminated by a laser beam, and model the crystallization and amorphization kinetics for phase-change rewritable media. Experimental methods have been used to determine indirectly the probabilities of nucleation and growth for Ge2Sb2Te5 alloy. Some of the fundamental behaviors of phase-change erasable media, such as the crystallization of as-deposited amorphous phase, amorphization of supercooled liquid, and recrystallization of quenched amorphous phase, have been illustrated based on our three-dimensional temperature calculations and the model kinetics. The calculated transient reflectance behavior of as-deposited Ge2Sb2Te5 amorphous films in a single layer and in a quadrilayer stack, as well as the erasure behavior of Ge2Sb2Te5 alloy in a quadrilayer disk are in good agreement with experimental observations. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(97)07821-3].