Ti-Induced Recovery Phenomenon of Resistive Switching in ZrO2 Thin Films

Abstract

In this study, we used W-probe directly contacted with the as-deposited ZrO2 films to perform the resistive switching (RS) phenomenon, and the ZrO2-based device finally came to break down (defined as BD-ZrO2/Pt device). A remarkable phenomenon called "recovery" was observed, where the RS phenomenon appeared again in a broken ZrO2-based device after Ti top electrode deposition. On the contrary, there was no such phenomenon while the Pt and Al top electrodes were deposited on the BD-ZrO2/Pt devices. The Ti-induced recovery phenomenon of RS could be explained by the effects of the interface layer formation. The interface layers, TiOz and ZrOy, served as the oxygen reservoir and the series resistance, respectively, to provide sufficient oxygen ions for inducing the redox reaction of the conducting filament near the ZrOy layer. Moreover, it also interpreted the high yield of the Ti/ZrO2/Pt device. Therefore, the interface engineering of the resistive random access memory device is found very crucial to improve its performance for future commercial applications. (C) 2010 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3428462] All rights reserved.