Coupled Current Jumps and Domain Wall Creeps in a Defect-Engineered Ferroelectric Resistive Memory

Ferroelectric (FE) resistive switching has attracted considerable interest as a promising candidate for applications in non-volatile memory technology. In this work, via judiciously controlling the defect states of oxygen vacancy through Sm-doping, the authors obtain multiple current jumps/discrete resistance states in the resistive switching memories based on a model FE BiFeO3 (BFO). These hitherto unreported current jumps are attributed to the space-charge-limited current correlated with electron trapping by oxygen vacancies in the BFO film. Concurrently, oxygen vacancies serve as the pinning centers for the FE domains, leading to the domain wall creep behavior. These results illustrate the strong interplay between the defect, resistive switching, and domain wall creep behavior in FE diodes, providing a new insight into the mechanism of FE resistive switching. Overall, the large on/off ratio of approximate to 5 x 10(5), multiple resistance states, and fast switching speed of approximate to 30 ns, promise their potential applications in multi-level data storage memories.

Automated summary

By judiciously controlling the defect states of oxygen vacancy through Sm-doping, multiple current jumps and discrete resistance states can be obtained in ferroelectric resistive switching memories. Oxygen vacancies play a critical role in electron trapping and as pinning centers for ferroelectric domains, leading to domain wall creep behavior.