Performance improvement of a tunnel junction memristor with amorphous insulator film

Fenning Liu; Yue Peng; Yan Liu; Wenwu Xiao; Yue Hao; Genquan Han

doi:10.1186/s11671-023-03800-0

Performance improvement of a tunnel junction memristor with amorphous insulator film

Discov Nano. 2023 Feb 21;18(1):20. doi: 10.1186/s11671-023-03800-0.

Authors

Fenning Liu¹, Yue Peng², Yan Liu³, Wenwu Xiao⁴, Yue Hao¹, Genquan Han^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Discipline Laboratory of Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Technology, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an, 710071, People's Republic of China.
² State Key Discipline Laboratory of Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Technology, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an, 710071, People's Republic of China. ypeng@xidian.edu.cn.
³ State Key Discipline Laboratory of Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Technology, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an, 710071, People's Republic of China. xdliuyan@xidian.edu.cn.
⁴ Xi'an UniIC Semiconductors, Xi'an, 710075, China.
⁵ Emerging Device and Chip Laboratory, Hangzhou Institute of Technology, Xidian University, Hangzhou, 311200, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

This study theoretically demonstrated the oxygen vacancy (V_O²⁺)-based modulation of a tunneling junction memristor (TJM) with a high and tunable tunneling electroresistance (TER) ratio. The tunneling barrier height and width are modulated by the V_O²⁺-related dipoles, and the ON and OFF-state of the device are achieved by the accumulation of V_O²⁺ and negative charges near the semiconductor electrode, respectively. Furthemore, the TER ratio of TJMs can be tuned by varying the density of the ion dipoles (N_dipole), thicknesses of ferroelectric-like film (T_FE) and SiO₂ (T_ox), doping concentration (N_d) of the semiconductor electrode, and the workfunction of the top electrode (TE). An optimized TER ratio can be achieved with high oxygen vacancy density, relatively thick T_FE, thin T_ox, small N_d, and moderate TE workfunction.

Keywords: Memristor; Oxygen vacancy; TJM; Tunneling electroresistance; Tunneling junction.