Bipolar resistance switching in high-performance Cu/ZnO:Mn/Pt nonvolatile memories: active region and influence of Joule heating

Manganese-doped ZnO dielectric films sandwiched between Cu and Pt electrodes were prepared and investigated for nonvolatile resistive memory applications. These structures exhibit promising bipolar resistive switching (RS) behavior with a large ON/OFF ratio (~103), suitable threshold voltages (1.4 and −0.7 V for SET and RESET, respectively), long retention (>104 s at 85 °C) and low write current (10 μA). A study on the ZnO:Mn thickness dependence of threshold voltages reveals that RS should be an interfacial effect rather than bulk behavior. By elevating current compliance during the SET process, an anomalous transition from bistable memory switching to monostable threshold switching was observed, which is attributed to the instability of conductive filaments induced by Joule heating effects. Apart from this, fast voltage sweep cycles without efficient heat dissipation were also found to accelerate the hard dielectric breakdown of the device, reflecting the impact of accumulative Joule heating. These results reveal the possible influences of Joule heating effects on bipolar resistance switching and thus the necessity of avoiding them in future high-density memory applications. Conceivable solutions are considered to be reducing the operating currents and improving the heat dissipation of memory devices based on our experiments.

[1]  M. Lampert,et al.  Current injection in solids , 1970 .

[2]  Wolf,et al.  Ferroelectric Schottky diode. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[3]  C. Gerber,et al.  Reproducible switching effect in thin oxide films for memory applications , 2000 .

[4]  C. Gerber,et al.  Current-driven insulator–conductor transition and nonvolatile memory in chromium-doped SrTiO3 single crystals , 2001 .

[5]  A. Senos,et al.  Varistor behaviour of Mn-doped ZnO ceramics , 2002 .

[6]  Rainer Waser,et al.  Resistive switching in metal–ferroelectric–metal junctions , 2003 .

[7]  S. Seo,et al.  Reproducible resistance switching in polycrystalline NiO films , 2004 .

[8]  H. Morkoç,et al.  A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF ZNO MATERIALS AND DEVICES , 2005 .

[9]  A Study of Apparent Symmetry Breakdown in Perovskite Oxide-based Symmetric RRAM Devices , 2005, cond-mat/0510059.

[10]  T. P. Gujar,et al.  Mn doped and undoped ZnO films: A comparative structural, optical and electrical properties study , 2006 .

[11]  A study of the symmetry properties and multi-state nature of perovskite oxide-based electrical pulse induced resistance-change devices , 2006 .

[12]  G. Gehring,et al.  Carrier-induced ferromagnetism in n-type ZnMnAlO and ZnCoAlO thin films at room temperature , 2006, cond-mat/0605654.

[13]  R. Waser,et al.  Nanoionics-based resistive switching memories. , 2007, Nature materials.

[14]  J. C. Scott,et al.  Nonvolatile Memory Elements Based on Organic Materials , 2007 .

[15]  S. Menzel,et al.  Understanding the switching-off mechanism in Ag+ migration based resistively switching model systems , 2007 .

[16]  B. Delley,et al.  Role of Oxygen Vacancies in Cr‐Doped SrTiO3 for Resistance‐Change Memory , 2007, 0707.0563.

[17]  A. Sawa.  Resistive switching in transition metal oxides , 2008 .

[18]  K. Tsunoda,et al.  Reduction in the reset current in a resistive random access memory consisting of NiOx brought about by reducing a parasitic capacitance , 2008 .

[19]  Jae Hyuck Jang,et al.  Effects of heat dissipation on unipolar resistance switching in Pt∕NiO∕Pt capacitors , 2008, 0802.3739.

[20]  W. Lu,et al.  CMOS compatible nanoscale nonvolatile resistance switching memory. , 2008, Nano letters.

[21]  Yuchao Yang,et al.  Ferromagnetism and possible application in spintronics of transition-metal-doped ZnO films , 2008 .

[22]  Thomas Thundat,et al.  ReviewNanosensors for trace explosive detection , 2008 .

[23]  S. Yasuda,et al.  Nonpolar resistance switching of metal/binary-transition-metal oxides/metal sandwiches: Homogeneous/inhomogeneous transition of current distribution , 2007, cond-mat/0702564.

[24]  Rainer Waser,et al.  Method to distinguish ferroelectric from nonferroelectric origin in case of resistive switching in ferroelectric capacitors , 2008 .

[25]  I. Baek,et al.  Write Current Reduction in Transition Metal Oxide Based Resistance Change Memory , 2008 .

[26]  G. I. Meijer,et al.  Who Wins the Nonvolatile Memory Race? , 2008, Science.

[27]  Zhong Lin Wang.  Splendid one-dimensional nanostructures of zinc oxide: a new nanomaterial family for nanotechnology. , 2008, ACS nano.

[28]  J. Yang,et al.  Memristive switching mechanism for metal/oxide/metal nanodevices. , 2008, Nature nanotechnology.

[29]  D. Ielmini,et al.  Study of Multilevel Programming in Programmable Metallization Cell (PMC) Memory , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[30]  Rainer Waser,et al.  Reliability analysis of the low resistance state stability of Ge0.3Se0.7 based solid electrolyte nonvolatile memory cells , 2009 .

[31]  S. Cheong,et al.  Reversible colossal resistance switching in (La,Pr,Ca)MnO3: Cryogenic nonvolatile memories , 2009 .

[32]  V. Garcia,et al.  Giant tunnel electroresistance for non-destructive readout of ferroelectric states , 2009, Nature.

[33]  F. Zeng,et al.  Fully room-temperature-fabricated nonvolatile resistive memory for ultrafast and high-density memory application. , 2009, Nano letters.

[34]  R. Waser,et al.  Electrode kinetics of Cu–SiO2-based resistive switching cells: Overcoming the voltage-time dilemma of electrochemical metallization memories , 2009 .

[35]  S.S. Wong,et al.  Elimination of Forming Process for TiOx Nonvolatile Memory Devices , 2009, IEEE Electron Device Letters.