Effect of Joule Heating on Resistive Switching Characteristic in AlOx Cells Made by Thermal Oxidation Formation

• Published in: Nanoscale research letters 2020-01, Vol.15 (1), p.11-11, Article 11
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xinxin, Xu, Ling, Zhang, Hui, Liu, Jian, Tan, Dingwen, Chen, Liangliang, Ma, Zhongyuan, Li, Wei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AlOx-based RRAM; Chemistry and Materials Science; Conduction; conductive filament; Joule heating; Low temperature; Materials Science; Memory devices; Molecular Medicine; Nano Express; Nanochemistry; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Ohmic dissipation; Oxidation; oxygen vacancies; Resistance heating; Substrates; Switching; Temperature dependence; Thickness; Vacuum
• ISSN: 1931-7573; 1556-276X
• DOI: 10.1186/s11671-019-3229-y

The AlO x -based resistive switching memory device is fabricated by an oxidation diffusion process that involves depositing an Al film on an ITO substrate and annealing at 400 °C in a vacuum. An AlO x interface layer with a thickness of ~ 20 nm is formed as a resistance switching layer. Bipolar and unipolar resistive switching (RS) behaviours are obtained when the compliance current is limited (≥ 1 mA). In the unipolar RS behaviour, the devices fail to perform set/reset cycles at a low temperature (40 K), which suggests that Joule heating is essential for the unipolar RS behaviour. In the bipolar RS behaviour, the abrupt reset transforms into a gradual reset with decreasing temperature, which suggests that Joule heating affects the rupture of the conductive filament. In addition, the conductive mechanisms in the high-resistance state and low-resistance state are revealed by the temperature dependence of the I-V curves. For the low-resistance state, the conduction mechanism is due to the electron hopping mechanism, with a hopping activation energy of 9.93 meV. For the high-resistance state, transport mechanism is dominated by the space-charge-limited conduction (SCLC) mechanism.