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While fast-switching rewritable nonvolatile memory units based on phase-change materials (PCMs) are already in production at major technology companies such as Intel (16–64 GB chips are currently available), an in-depth understanding of the physical factors that determine their success is still lacking. Recently, we have argued for a liquid-phase metal-to-semiconductor transition (M-SC), located not far below the melting point, T m , as essential. The M-SC is itself a consequence of atomic rearrangements that are involved in a fragile-to-strong viscosity transition that controls both the speed of crystallization and the stabilization of the semiconducting state. Here, we review past work and introduce a new parameter, the “metallicity” (inverse of the average Pauling electronegativity of a multicomponent alloy). When T m -scaled temperatures of known M-SCs of Group IV, V, and VI alloys are plotted against their metallicities, the curvilinear plot leads directly to the composition zone of all known PCMs and the temperature interval below T m , where the transition should occur. The metallicity concept could provide guidance for tailoring PCMs. 

The dynamic properties of liquid phase-change materials (PCMs), such as viscosity η and the atomic self-diffusion coefficient D , play an essential role in the ultrafast phase switching behavior of novel nonvolatile phase-change memory applications. To connect η to D , the Stokes-Einstein relation (SER) is commonly assumed to be valid at high temperatures near or above the melting temperature T m and is often used for assessing liquid fragility (or crystal growth velocity) of technologically important PCMs. However, using quasi-elastic neutron scattering, we provide experimental evidence for a breakdown of the SER even at temperatures above T m in the high–atomic mobility state of a PCM, Ge 1 Sb 2 Te 4 . This implies that although viscosity may have strongly increased during cooling, diffusivity can remain high owing to early decoupling, being a favorable feature for the fast phase switching behavior of the high-fluidity PCM. We discuss the origin of the observation and propose the possible connection to a metal-semiconductor and fragile-strong transition hidden below T m .