Sub-nanosecond memristor based on ferroelectric tunnel junction

Chao Ma; Zhen Luo; Weichuan Huang; Letian Zhao; Qiaoling Chen; Yue Lin; Xiang Liu; Zhiwei Chen; Chuanchuan Liu; Haoyang Sun; Xi Jin; Yuewei Yin; Xiaoguang Li

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15249-1

Sub-nanosecond memristor based on ferroelectric tunnel junction

Nat Commun. 2020 Mar 18;11(1):1439. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15249-1.

Authors

Chao Ma^#¹, Zhen Luo^#¹, Weichuan Huang¹, Letian Zhao¹, Qiaoling Chen¹, Yue Lin¹, Xiang Liu¹, Zhiwei Chen¹, Chuanchuan Liu¹, Haoyang Sun¹, Xi Jin¹, Yuewei Yin², Xiaoguang Li^{3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Physics, and CAS key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
² Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Physics, and CAS key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. yyw@ustc.edu.cn.
³ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Physics, and CAS key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. lixg@ustc.edu.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Institute of Solid State Physics, CAS, Hefei, China. lixg@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, China. lixg@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Next-generation non-volatile memories with ultrafast speed, low power consumption, and high density are highly desired in the era of big data. Here, we report a high performance memristor based on a Ag/BaTiO₃/Nb:SrTiO₃ ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) with the fastest operation speed (600 ps) and the highest number of states (32 states or 5 bits) per cell among the reported FTJs. The sub-nanosecond resistive switching maintains up to 358 K, and the write current density is as low as 4 × 10³ A cm^-2. The functionality of spike-timing-dependent plasticity served as a solid synaptic device is also obtained with ultrafast operation. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a Nb:SrTiO₃ electrode with a higher carrier concentration and a metal electrode with lower work function tend to improve the operation speed. These results may throw light on the way for overcoming the storage performance gap between different levels of the memory hierarchy and developing ultrafast neuromorphic computing systems.

Grants and funding

51790491/National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)