Resistive switching performance improvement of amorphous carbon-based electrochemical metallization memory via current stressing

Abstract

Current stressing treatment on amorphous carbon (a-C)-based electrochemical metallization (ECM) memory cells before the electroforming process is proposed. The resistive switching (RS) performance of a Cu/a-C/Pt ECM cell after low current (10 μA) stressing treatment is improved, including reduced forming voltages, improved switching uniformity, enhanced cycling endurance, and enhanced switching speed. MicroRaman mapping and conductive-atomic force microscopy measurements reveal that current stressing can cause clustering of sp2 sites in a-C and the conductive filament (CF) randomness is reduced. The reduction of CF nucleation site randomness and enhancement of the local electric field through sp2-clustering are assumed to be responsible for the observed RS performance improvement. The results demonstrate that current stressing is a feasible approach for optimizing the RS performance of a-C-based ECM memory, and it can also be extended to the development of carbon-based electronic devices.