Characteristics and mechanism study of cerium oxide based random access memories

In this work, low operating voltage and high resistance ratio of different resistance states of binary transition metal oxide based resistive random access memories (RRAMs) are demonstrated. Binary transition metal oxides with high dielectric constant have been explored for RRAM application for years. However, CeOx is considered as a relatively new material to other dielectrics. Since research on CeOx based RRAM is still at preliminary stage, fundamental characteristics of RRAM such as scalability and mechanism studies need to be done before moving further. Here, we show very high operation window and low switching voltage of CeOx RRAMs and also compare electrical performance of Al/CeOx/Au system between different thin film deposition methods and discuss characteristics and resistive switching mechanism. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.