Herein, Bi4Ti3O12 (BIT) ferroelectric thin films were fabricated into Au/BIT/LaNiO3/Si structures to demonstrate their memristor properties. Repeatable and stable bipolar resistive switching (RS) characteristics of the device are first reported in this work. The switching ratio of the device annealed in air reached approximately 102 at 0.1 and -0.1 V. The RS performance was not significantly degraded after 100 consecutive cycles of testing. We also explored the factors affecting the RS behavior of the device. By investigating the RS characteristics of the devices annealed in O2, and in combination with XPS analysis, we found that the RS properties were closely related to the presence of oxygen vacancies. The devices annealed in air exhibited a markedly improved RS effect over those annealed in O2. According to the slope fitting, the conduction mechanism of the device was the ohmic conduction and space charge limited current (SCLC). This study is the first to successfully apply BIT ferroelectric films to the RS layers of memristors. Additionally, a theory of conductive filaments is proposed to adequately explain the relationship between RS behavior and oxygen vacancies, providing meaningful inspiration for designing high-quality resistive random access memory devices.
Keywords: Bi4Ti3O12; conductive filaments; oxygen vacancies; resistive switching; thin film.