학술논문

Elimination of endurance degradation by oxygen annealing in bilayer ZnO/CeO2-x thin films for nonvolatile resistive memory
Document Type
Article
Source
Current Applied Physics, 18(8), pp.924-932 Aug, 2018
Subject
물리학
Language
English
ISSN
1567-1739
Abstract
Effect of oxygen annealing on bipolar resistive switching (BRS) properties of TiN/ZnO/CeO2-x/Pt devices was investigated. Bilayer ZnO/CeO2-x thin films were fabricated by rf-magnetron sputtering. It was observed that the improvement in cycle-to-cycle endurance degradation and uniformity of the bilayer ZnO/CeO2-x thin film is optimum at 400 °C annealing temperature due to decrease in oxygen vacancies during annealing, as confirmed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The BRS could be caused by the formation of interfacial TiON layer, which is most likely to be accountable for creating an adequate quantity of oxygen vacancies necessary for the formation and rupture of conductive filaments. Smaller Gibbs free energy of the formation of interfacial TiON (−611 kJmol−1) layer as compared to bilayer film ZnO (−650 kJmol−1) and CeO2 (−1024 kJmol−1) results in an easier re-oxidation of the filaments through the oxygen exchange with TiN top electrode. The analysis of current– voltage characteristics shows that the charge transport mechanism is Schottky emission. Moreover, the temperature dependence of high resistance state (HRS) and low resistance state (LRS) revealed the physical origin of the RS mechanism, which entails the oxygen vacancies for the formation and rupture of conducting paths.