Tuning oxygen vacancies and resistive switching behaviors in amorphous Y2O3 film-based memories

Yttrium oxide (Y2O3) has attracted attentions as the new and promising functional material in resistive switching (RS) memories. However, the oxygen vacancies tuning by various electrodes is lack of understanding for Y2O3-based memories, which plays a crucial role for RS behaviors. Here, non-crystalline Y2O3 films prepared through magnetron sputtering deposition are used to construct RS memory devices with different structure. All the devices exhibit nonvolatile bipolar RS behaviors and the switching phenomena are depended on the formation/rupture of conductive filaments (CFs), which are composed of oxygen vacancies. In special, the Y2O3-based memories with Pt/Y2O3/Pt structure demonstrate competitive switching properties, including the ultra-lower set/reset voltages and high retention characteristic. Furthermore, the influence of different electrodes on oxygen vacancies, as well as morphologies of CFs, are discussed in detail. Besides that, physical models are proposed to further clarify carrier transport mechanisms and switching behaviors for memories with different structure. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the structural design and oxygen vacancies tunning by selecting electrodes in amorphous Y2O3 film-based RS memories. (C) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Yttrium oxide (Y2O3) has been investigated as a functional material for resistive switching memories. However, there is a lack of understanding regarding the tuning of oxygen vacancies by various electrodes in Y2O3-based memories. In this study, non-crystalline Y2O3 films prepared through magnetron sputtering deposition were used to construct resistive switching memory devices with different structures. The devices exhibited nonvolatile bipolar resistive switching behaviors, which were dependent on the formation/rupture of conductive filaments composed of oxygen vacancies. The Y2O3-based memories with Pt/Y2O3/Pt structure showed competitive switching properties, including ultra-low set/reset voltages and high retention characteristics. The influence of different electrodes on oxygen vacancies and the morphologies of conductive filaments were discussed in detail. Additionally, physical models were proposed to clarify carrier transport mechanisms and switching behaviors for memories with different structures.