Magnetic field controllable nonvolatile resistive switching effect in silicon device

A Si-SiO2-MgO device showing nonvolatile resistive switching effect is fabricated. It is observed the resistance of the device changed from high value to low value at a certain transition voltage after being stimulated by a large current. In addition, the transition voltage shifts reproducibly under a reversed large current. By applying a reading voltage in the range of the transition voltages, nonvolatile resistive switching phenomena with on/off ratio of about 10, endurance of more than 200 cycles and retention of more than 10(4) s is obtained. More importantly, it is also observed that the magnetic field could shift the transition voltage to higher values, affecting or even suppressing the resistive switching. The magnetic field controllable nonvolatile resistive switching effect in the silicon device suggested by this work may be helpful to the silicon based industry. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.