Anantram, ManjeriLiu, Jie2014-02-242014-02-242014-02-242013Liu_washington_0250E_12614.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/25134Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2013This PhD thesis investigates the phase change material (PCM) based memory technology using multiscale theoretical modeling and numerical simulation. The multiscale analysis consists of three hierarchical parts: (i) the macroscopic simulation (about tens to hundres of nm and beyond), which studies the electro-thermal transport by using analytic derivation and time-dependent finite element method (TD-FEM); (ii) the mesoscopic simulation (about 1 to 10 nm), which investigates the electron transport properties by using the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method; and (iii) the microscopic simulation (about 0.1 to 1 nm), which studies the electronic structure, amorphization and crystallization processes by using density functional theory (DFT) and ab-initio molecular dynamics (AIMD).application/pdfen-USCopyright is held by the individual authors.electron transport; electro-thermal transport; multiscale simulation; phase change memory (PCM); thermal boundary resistance (TBR); time dependent finite element method (TD-FEM)Engineeringelectrical engineeringThesis