Influence of oxygen vacancies in ALD HfO2-x thin films on non-volatile resistive switching phenomena with a Ti/HfO2-x/Pt structure

We report a modulation of oxygen vacancies profile in atomic layer deposition (ALD) HfO2-x thin films by reducing oxidant pulse time (0.7 s-0.1 s) and study its effect on resistive switching behavior with a Ti/HfO2-x/Pt structure. Hf 4f spectra of x-ray photoelectron microscopy (XPS) and depth profile confirm varied oxygen vacancies profiles by shifts of binding energies of Hf 4f5/2 and Hf 4f7/2 main peaks and its according HfO2-x sub-oxides for each device. The ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) confirms different electron affinity (chi) of HfO2 and HfO2-x thin films, implying that barrier height at Ti/oxide interface is reduced. Current transport mechanism is dictated by Ohmic conduction in fully oxidized HfO2 thin films - Device A (0.7 s) and by Trap Filled Space Charge Limited Conduction (TF-SCLC) in less oxidized HfO2-x thin films - Device B (0.3 s) and Device C (0.1 s). A switching mechanism related to the oxygen vacancies modulation in Ti/HfO2-x/Pt based resistive random access memory (RRAM) devices is used to explain carefully notified current transport mechanism variations from device-to-device. A proper endurance and long-time retention characteristics of the devices are also obtained. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.