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Topic · Materials Chemistry

Phase-change materials and chalcogenides

Phase-change materials and chalcogenides is a research topic within Materials Chemistry. Science Explorer counts 23k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on phase change materials, particularly their application in data storage and photonics. It covers topics such as non-volatile memory, chalcogenide glasses, optical properties, crystallization mechanisms, nanowire memory, and low-power switching. The research aims to advance the understanding and utilization of phase change materials for future universal memory and high-performance photonic applications.

  • Phase Change Materials
  • Non-Volatile Memory
  • Chalcogenide Glasses
  • Photonic Applications
  • Crystallization Mechanism
  • Nanowire Memory
  • Optical Properties
  • Rewritable Storage
  • Low-Power Switching
  • Universal Memory
Research works
23k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.3k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+8%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
39% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Phase-change materials and chalcogenides

Which countries lead Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research?

By volume, China and India publish the most (853 and 316 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 853 works
  2. 2 India 316 works
  3. 3 United States 286 works
  4. 4 Russia 158 works
  5. 5 France 139 works
  6. 6 Japan 125 works
  7. 7 South Korea 105 works
  8. 8 Germany 96 works
  9. 9 Egypt 62 works
  10. 10 United Kingdom 50 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 38.9%India: 14.4%United States: 13.1%Russia: 7.2%6 others listed: 26.4%39%largest
China853 · 38.9%India316 · 14.4%United States286 · 13.1%Russia158 · 7.2%6 others listed577 · 26.4%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research?

By volume in 2022-now, Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the most Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research, followed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Russian Academy of Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 105 works
  2. 2 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 67 works
  3. 3 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 62 works
  4. 4 Ningbo UniversityChina 33 works
  5. 5 Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChina 28 works
  6. 6 University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 19 works
  7. 7 Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies AlternativesFrance 17 works
  8. 8 RWTH Aachen UniversityGermany 16 works
  9. 9 Tohoku UniversityJapan 15 works
  10. 10 Zhejiang UniversityChina 15 works

Who are the leading researchers in Phase-change materials and chalcogenides?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Phase-change materials and chalcogenides include M. Shoji, Georg Kresse and Yi Ping Cui.

  1. 1 M. Shoji Japan 806k citations
  2. 2 Georg Kresse Austria 431k citations
  3. 3 Yi Ping Cui United States 261k citations
  4. 4 Kenji Watanabe Japan 237k citations
  5. 5 Takashi Taniguchi Japan 227k citations
  6. 6 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  7. 7 Jiaguo Yu China 207k citations
  8. 8 Mercouri G. Kanatzidis United States 196k citations
  9. 9 Richard Henry Friend United Kingdom 185k citations
  10. 10 Qiang Zhang China 184k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Phase-change materials and chalcogenides?

The most cited paper in Phase-change materials and chalcogenides is "Memristor-The missing circuit element" (Leon Ong Chua, 1971), with 10,276 citations. Next come "Classification of Bulk Metallic Glasses by Atomic Size Difference, Heat of Mixing and Period of Constituent Elements and Its Application to Characterization of the Main Alloying Element" (4,952) and "Maximally localized generalized Wannier functions for composite energy bands" (4,867).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Memristor-The missing circuit element Leon Ong Chua · IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory 1971 10,276
2 Classification of Bulk Metallic Glasses by Atomic Size Difference, Heat of Mixing and Period of Constituent Elements and Its Application to Characterization of the Main Alloying Element Akira Takeuchi, Akihisa Inoue · MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS Open access 2005 4,952
3 Maximally localized generalized Wannier functions for composite energy bands Nicola Marzari, David Vanderbilt · Physical review. B, Condensed matter Open access 15 Nov 1997 4,867
4 Conduction in non-crystalline systems V. Conductivity, optical absorption and photoconductivity in amorphous semiconductors E. A. Davis, N. F. Mott · Philosophical magazine Nov 1970 4,390
5 Phase-change materials for rewriteable data storage Matthias Wuttig, Noboru Yamada · Nature Materials Nov 2007 3,657
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research done?

The largest centres of Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Wuhan (China) and Seoul (South Korea). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Baku and Ningbo.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 156 works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 85 works
  3. 3 WuhanChina 60 works
  4. 4 SeoulSouth Korea 56 works
  5. 5 MoscowRussia 45 works
  6. 6 Xi'anChina 41 works
  7. 7 NingboChina 40 works
  8. 8 ParisFrance 38 works
  9. 9 BakuAzerbaijan 37 works
  10. 10 Saint PetersburgRussia 33 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. BakuAZ · 36.8 works16×
  2. NingboCN · 40.3 works11×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Phase-change materials and chalcogenides than the world average.

See Phase-change materials and chalcogenides on the map

Where is the best place to study Phase-change materials and chalcogenides?

Among universities, judged by research, RWTH Aachen University, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Huazhong University of Science and Technology score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 19.56%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Indian Institute of …RWTH Aachen UniversityXi'an Jiaotong Unive…Huazhong University …
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1RWTH Aachen UniversityGermany 66.725.5%8.3×16 -22.3%
2Indian Institute of Science BangaloreIndia 64.734.3%13.1×13 +20.7%
3Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChina 61.211.5%6.2×28 +98.9%
4Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 59.425.0%3.0×13 +84.6%
5University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 58.018.5%4.6×19 +13.0%
6Shenzhen UniversityChina 56.617.6%6.8×12 +35.2%
7Ningbo UniversityChina 54.76.7%22.1×33 +1.4%
8Beihang UniversityChina 50.425.1%3.7×10 +43.8%
9Zhejiang UniversityChina 49.314.8%2.3×15 +29.3%
10University of WashingtonUnited States 46.316.6%3.6×10 +115.5%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Phase-change materials and chalcogenides, country by country

Is Phase-change materials and chalcogenides research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 8% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Phase-change materials and chalcogenides.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Phase-change materials and chalcogenides as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.012% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Phase-change materials and chalcogenides0.012% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Phase-change materials and chalcogenides over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Phase-change materials and chalcogenides10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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