Temperature dependence of the resistance switching effect studied on the metal/YBa2Cu3O6+x planar junctions

Abstract

The resistive switching (RS) effect observed in capacitorlike metal/insulator/metal junctions belongs to the most promising candidates for next generation of memory cell technology. It is based on a sudden change of the junction resistance caused by an electric field applied to the metal electrodes. The aim of this work was to study this effect on the structure metal/YBCO6/YBCO7, where YBCO7 is a metallic phase and YBCO6 is an insulator phase that arises spontaneously by outdiffusion of oxygen from a few nanometers wide YBCO surface layer. Oriented YBa2Cu3O7 thin films were prepared by the method of magnetron sputtering and consequently planar structures with metal-YBCO junction were made by the means of the optical lithography, ion etching, and vacuum evaporation. On these junctions, the authors have studied the temperature dependence of the RS effect with I-V and dI/dV-V transport measurements down to liquid He temperature. They have determined the temperature dependence of the RS effect threshold voltage in the temperature range 100–300 K and showed that this dependency is compatible with common idea of oxygen ion migration under electric field within the YBCO surface layer.