Ultrafast temporal-spatial dynamics of amorphous-to-crystalline phase transition in Ge2Sb2Te5 thin film triggered by multiple femtosecond laser pulses irradiation

Studies have shown that the crystallization phase state of Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) can be reversibly modulated by femtosecond (fs) laser multiple pulses, which have excellent applications in reconfigurable multi-level operation fields. In this study, the temporal-spatial crystalline evolution dynamics of amorphous GST film is investigated during two fs laser pulses excitation through a pump-probe shadowgraph imaging technique. A quasi-amorphous phase state, which is different from that in the initial as-deposited amorphous GST, is emerged through the first fs laser pulse excitation with a pulse energy lower than crystallization threshold. The experimental results reveal that a crystallization enhancement effect can be induced through the second pulse excitation based on this quasi-amorphous surface structure. The stimulative cluster generated in the quasi-amorphous reduces the amorphous-to-crystalline phase transition threshold for the second fs laser pulse irradiation. The spatially-resolved phase-transition threshold extension effect in a horizontal direction is proposed with the increasing pulse number to summarize the mechanism of the crystallization enhancement effect. The specific-grain-appearance (coarse grains and fine grains representing different phase transition approach) distributed area induced by single and double fs laser pulses irradiation are experimentally demonstrated corresponding to threshold extension theory.