Abstract
We report on the investigation of the resistive switching (RS) in the ultrathin (≈5 nm in thickness) yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) films with single layers of Au nanoparticles (NPs) by conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM). Besides the butterfly-type hysteresis loops in the current-voltage (I-V) curves of the contact of the CAFM probe to the investigated film surface corresponding to the bipolar RS, the negative differential resistance (NDR) has been observed in the I-V curves of the AFM probe contact to the YSZ films with Au NPs in the conductive (“ON”) state. The NDR has been related to the resonant tunneling of electrons through the size-quantized energy states in the ultrafine (1 to 2 nm in diameter) Au NPs built in the conductive filaments in the YSZ films.
Highlights
Resistive switching (RS) was studied extensively in the last decade due to the prospects of its application in novel nonvolatile computer memory [1]
The effect of RS consists in a reversible change of the resistance of a thin dielectric film sandwiched between two conductive electrodes under the external electric voltage [2]
We report on the conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) investigation of the RS in the yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) films with embedded single layers of the Au nanoparticles (NPs)
Summary
Resistive switching (RS) was studied extensively in the last decade due to the prospects of its application in novel nonvolatile computer memory (resistive random access memory, RRAM) [1]. The effect of RS consists in a reversible change of the resistance of a thin dielectric film sandwiched between two conductive electrodes under the external electric voltage [2]. Today’s understanding of the RS mechanism in the transition metal oxides is based on a concept of the drift of the oxygen ions O2− (that can be understood in terms of the drift of the oxygen vacancies, VOs) in the external electric field applied between the electrodes [3]. The prevalent mechanism of RS is considered to be the formation and rupture of the nanoscale conductive filaments inside the insulating films consisting of the VOs [4]. When a part of the filament (a “bottleneck”) is represented by a chain of VOs and a ones) sisinfigllleedVbOyinthtehOe 2c−haioinn((so)r, a countable number of these such a system can be treated as a quantum point contact (QPC) [7,8,9]
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