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Memristive switching mechanism for metal/oxide/metal nanodevices

Nature Nanotechnology volume 3, pages 429–433 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Nanoscale metal/oxide/metal switches have the potential to transform the market for nonvolatile memory and could lead to novel forms of computing. However, progress has been delayed by difficulties in understanding and controlling the coupled electronic and ionic phenomena that dominate the behaviour of nanoscale oxide devices. An analytic theory of the ‘memristor’ (memory-resistor) was first developed from fundamental symmetry arguments in 1971, and we recently showed that memristor behaviour can naturally explain such coupled electron–ion dynamics. Here we provide experimental evidence to support this general model of memristive electrical switching in oxide systems. We have built micro- and nanoscale TiO2 junction devices with platinum electrodes that exhibit fast bipolar nonvolatile switching. We demonstrate that switching involves changes to the electronic barrier at the Pt/TiO2 interface due to the drift of positively charged oxygen vacancies under an applied electric field. Vacancy drift towards the interface creates conducting channels that shunt, or short-circuit, the electronic barrier to switch ON. The drift of vacancies away from the interface annilihilates such channels, recovering the electronic barrier to switch OFF. Using this model we have built TiO2 crosspoints with engineered oxygen vacancy profiles that predictively control the switching polarity and conductance.

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Figure 1: Bipolar reversible and nonvolatile switching of nanoscale TiO2−x devices.
Figure 2: Junctions on single-crystal TiO2 show the role of the interfaces in determining the electrical behaviour.
Figure 3: Switching is local and occurs at the Pt/TiO2 interface.
Figure 4: Thin-film TiO2−x devices with controlled oxygen vacancy profiles verify the switching mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to HP colleagues W. Tong, J. Borghetti, Feng Miao and Zhiyong Li for valuable assistance with experiments, and D. Strukov and P. Kuekes for insightful discussions about the TiO2 switching mechanisms. This research was supported in part by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, 94304, California, USA

    J. Joshua Yang, Matthew D. Pickett, Xuema Li, Douglas A. A. Ohlberg, Duncan R. Stewart & R. Stanley Williams

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  1. J. Joshua Yang
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  2. Matthew D. Pickett
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  3. Xuema Li
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  4. Douglas A. A. Ohlberg
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Contributions

J.Y. and D.S. conceived and designed the experiments. J.Y. performed the experiments. J.Y., M.P., D.S. and R.W. analysed the data. D.O. and X.L. contributed materials/analysis tools. J.Y., D.S. and R.W. co-wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Duncan R. Stewart.

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Yang, J., Pickett, M., Li, X. et al. Memristive switching mechanism for metal/oxide/metal nanodevices. Nature Nanotech 3, 429–433 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.160

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