  Chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs) based random access memory (PCRAM)
is one of the leading candidates for the development of non-volatile memory and
neuro-inspired computing technologies. Recent work shows Indium to be an
important alloying element for PCRAM, while a thorough understanding of the
parent compound InTe, in particular, its amorphous phase, is still lacking. In
this work, we carry out ab initio simulations and chemical bonding analyses on
amorphous and various crystalline polymorphs of InTe. We reveal that the local
geometries are highly density dependent in amorphous structures, forming
In-centered tetrahedral motifs under ambient conditions but defective
octahedral motifs under pressure, which stems from the bonding characters of
its crystalline polymorphs. In addition, our ab initio molecular dynamics
simulations predict rapid crystallization capability of InTe under pressure. At
last, we make a suggestion for better use of Indium and propose an "active"
device design to utilize both thermal and mechanical effects for phase-change
applications.
