Study on ferroelectric polarization induced resistive switching characteristics of neodymium-doped bismuth ferrite thin films for random access memory applications

• Published in: Current applied physics 2022, 39(0), , pp.221-229
• Main Authors: Kossar, Shahnaz, Amiruddin, R., Rasool, Asif, Kumar, M.C. Santhosh, Katragadda, Nagamalleswari, Mandal, Pranab, Ahmed, Nafis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ferroelectrics; ReRAM; Resistive switching; 물리학
• ISSN: 1567-1739; 1878-1675
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cap.2022.04.013

The present work reports on resistive switching (RS) characteristics of Neodymium (Nd)-doped bismuth ferrite (BFO) layers. The Nd (2–10 at%) doped BFO thin film layers were deposited using a spray pyrolysis method. The structural analysis reveals that a higher Nd doping concentration in BFO leads to significant distortion of the prepared Nd:BFO thin films from rhombohedral to tetragonal characteristics. The morphological analysis shows that all the deposited Nd:BFO thin films have regularly arranged grains. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis reveals that the prepared Nd:BFO thin films have a higher Fe 3+/Fe 2+ratio and less oxygen vacancy (VO) defects which enriches the ferroelectric characteristics in Nd:BFO layers. The polarization-electric field (P-E) and RS characteristics of the fabricated Nd:BFO-based RS device were examined. It was observed that the Nd (7 at%) doped BFO RS device shows large remnant polarization (P r) of 0.21 μC/cm2 and stable RS characteristics. [Display omitted] •The present work reports on resistive switching (RS) characteristics of Neodymium (Nd)-doped bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3, BFO) layers.•The structural, morphological, ferroelectric, and RS characteristics of Nd:doped BFO (Nd:BFO) layers were investigated.•To fabricate the RS device, the Nd (2–10 at%) doped BFO layers were stacked between top silver (Ag) and bottom indium doped tin oxide (ITO) electrodes.•The role of Nd dopant in BFO towards controlling the oxygen vacancy (VO) defects and improving the ferroelectric polarization-induced RS characteristics of the device was investigated.