Ab initio investigation of amorphous Sb₂Te

Chalcogenide phase-change alloys are an important class of materials for applications in data storage. In this work, we investigate the structural properties of the amorphous phase of the phase-change material Sb₂Te. We show that all the atoms in Sb₂Te are in a defective octahedral environment, that the majority of primitive rings are five- and four-membered, and that the voids are small and amount to about 2 % of the total volume of the system. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]