Abstract
Application of an electric stimulus to a material with a metal-insulator transition can trigger a large resistance change. Resistive switching from an insulating into a metallic phase, which typically occurs by the formation of a conducting filament parallel to the current flow, is a highly active research topic. Using the magneto-optical Kerr imaging, we found that the opposite type of resistive switching, from a metal into an insulator, occurs in a reciprocal characteristic spatial pattern: the formation of an insulating barrier perpendicular to the driving current. This barrier formation leads to an unusual N-type negative differential resistance in the current-voltage characteristics. We further demonstrate that electrically inducing a transverse barrier enables a unique approach to voltage-controlled magnetism. By triggering the metal-to-insulator resistive switching in a magnetic material, local on/off control of ferromagnetism is achieved using a global voltage bias applied to the whole device.
Highlights
Application of an electric stimulus to a material with a metal-insulator transition can trigger a large resistance change
We study volatile resistive switching based on electrical triggering of an metal–insulator transition (MIT) in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) thin film devices
Resistive switching in LSMO manifests as strong nonlinearities in the in the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics
Summary
Application of an electric stimulus to a material with a metal-insulator transition can trigger a large resistance change. Using the magneto-optical Kerr imaging, we found that the opposite type of resistive switching, from a metal into an insulator, occurs in a reciprocal characteristic spatial pattern: the formation of an insulating barrier perpendicular to the driving current. There has been a great interest in a different type of resistive switching: volatile switching due to electrical triggering of a metal–insulator transition (MIT), i.e. an intrinsic phase transition that alters the charge transport properties of a material (e.g., Mott or Peierls transition). The application of an electric stimulus causes a local phase transition due to Joule heating and/ or field-induced carrier doping[25,28,31,32,33,34,35] This local transition often follows a characteristic spatial pattern: the formation of a percolating metallic phase filament serving as a conduit for paramagnetic insulator. We discuss the implications of our finding to nonvolatile ionic-migration-based low- to highresistance switching
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