Compliance-Free ZrO2/ZrO2 - x /ZrO2 Resistive Memory with Controllable Interfacial Multistate Switching Behaviour

Ruomeng Huang; Xingzhao Yan; Sheng Ye; Reza Kashtiban; Richard Beanland; Katrina A Morgan; Martin D B Charlton; C H Kees de Groot

doi:10.1186/s11671-017-2155-0

Compliance-Free ZrO₂/ZrO_{2 - x} /ZrO₂ Resistive Memory with Controllable Interfacial Multistate Switching Behaviour

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2017 Dec;12(1):384. doi: 10.1186/s11671-017-2155-0. Epub 2017 Jun 2.

Authors

Ruomeng Huang¹, Xingzhao Yan², Sheng Ye², Reza Kashtiban³, Richard Beanland³, Katrina A Morgan², Martin D B Charlton², C H Kees de Groot²

Affiliations

¹ Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. R.Huang@soton.ac.uk.
² Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
³ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.

Abstract

A controllable transformation from interfacial to filamentary switching mode is presented on a ZrO₂/ZrO_{2 - x} /ZrO₂ tri-layer resistive memory. The two switching modes are investigated with possible switching and transformation mechanisms proposed. Resistivity modulation of the ZrO_{2 - x} layer is proposed to be responsible for the switching in the interfacial switching mode through injecting/retracting of oxygen ions. The switching is compliance-free due to the intrinsic series resistor by the filaments formed in the ZrO₂ layers. By tuning the RESET voltages, controllable and stable multistate memory can be achieved which clearly points towards the capability of developing the next-generation multistate high-performance memory.

Keywords: Compliance-free; Interfacial switching; Multistate; Resistive random access memory.