Improved resistive switching properties of Ti/ZrO2/Pt memory devices for RRAM application

Abstract

In this study, we have investigated the effect of current compliance during forming process on resistive switching (RS) characteristics of the Ti/ZrO2/Pt device. The higher the current compliance is, the larger RS operation voltage is needed. The Ti/ZrO2/Pt device with high device yield can be operated over 10,000 RS cycles by sweeping dc voltage. and the on and off two memory states exhibit good stability under 0.3 V stress voltage. Moreover, the data retention of both memory states is over 10(5) s. As applying +6-V 10-ns and -3-V 10-ns voltage pulses on the device, there are operation errors observed during continuous write-read-erase-read cycles until increasing the pulse width to 50 ns. Nondestructive readout tests are also performed on the Ti/ZrO2/Pt device before and after 10(3) pulse cycles without any obvious degradation observed. Compared with reported ZrO2-based memory devices, our Ti/ZrO2/Pt device exhibits better RS properties and has a high potential for memory application. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.