Effect of top electrode material on resistive switching properties of ZrO2 film memory devices

The influence of top electrode material on the resistive switching properties of ZrO2 -based memory film using Pt as a bottom electrode was investigated in this letter. In comparison with Pt/ZrO2/Pt and Al/ZrO2/Pt devices, the Ti/ZrO2/Pt device exhibits different resistive switching current-voltage (I-V) curve, which can be traced and reproduced by a dc voltage more than 1000 times only showing a little decrease of resistance ratio between high and low resistance states. Furthermore, the broad dispersions of resistive switching characteristics in the Pt/ZrO2/Pt and Al/ZrO2/Pt devices are generally observed during successive resistive switching, but those dispersions are suppressed by the device using Ti as a top electrode. The reliability results, such as cycling endurance and continuous readout test, are also presented. The write-read-erase-read operations can be over 104 cycles without degradation. No data loss is found upon successive readout after performing various endurance cycles.