The Significance of Antimony for Research on Phase Change Materials

For many years, phase change materials have been improved by mixing additional chemical species into alloys consisting of Ge, Sb and Te leading to rather complex compositions. A few years ago, in stark contrast to this common strategy, it was demonstrated that also pure Antimony can render phase change behaviour when spatially confined. Here, we discuss the role this product of maximal compositional simplification could play for research and applications.