"Phase Change Materials: Science and Applications" provides a unique introduction of this rapidly developing field. Clearly written and well-structured, this volume describes the material science of these fascinating materials from a theoretical and experimental perspective. Readers will find an in-depth description of their existing and potential applications in optical and solid state storage devices as well as reconfigurable logic applications.Researchers, graduate students and scientists with an interest in this field will find "Phase Change Materials" to be a valuable reference.

Analyses current technological boost in the use of phase change materials as solid state memory devices

History of Phase Change Memories.- History of Phase Change Memories.- Material Science: Theory and Experiment.- Density Functional Theory Calculations for Phase Change Materials.- Nature of Glasses.- Structure of Amorphous Ge-Sb-Te Solids.- Experimental Methods for Material Selection in Phase-change Recording.- Scaling Properties of Phase Change Materials.- Crystallization Kinetics.- Short and Long-Range Order in Phase Change Materials.- Optical and Electrical Properties of Phase Change Materials.- Development of Materials for Third Generation Optical Storage Media.- Novel Deposition Methods.- Applications: Optical, Solid State Memory and Reconfigurable Logic.- Optical Memory: From 1st to 3rd Generation and its Future.- 4th Generation Optical Memories Based on Super-resolution Near-field structure (Super-RENS) and Near-field Optics.- Phase Change Memory Device Modeling.- Phase Change Random Access Memory Advanced Prototype Devices and Scaling.- Phase Change Memory Cell Concepts and Designs.- Phase Change Random Access Memory Integration.- Reconfigurable Logic.