Electrical Resistance Switching In Ti Added Amorphous Siox

Unipolar switching in electrical resistivity is demonstrated in Ti-doped amorphous SiOx with suitable electrodes. We studied stacks of Al(30 nm)/SiOx/Pt, Cu/SiOx/Pt, Cu/Al(2 nm)/SiOx /Pt, and Pt/SiOx/TiN grown on Ti/SiO2/Si(100) wafer to investigate the effect of metal electrodes. The nature of interface oxides between top electrodes and SiOx, as elucidated by x-ray photoelectron and Auger-electron spectra, was found to manifestly influence switching-ability. A 30 nm Al top electrode leads to thick interfacial Al2O3, which frustrates resistivity switching, while an ultrathin Al between Cu and SiOx alleviates this problem. The Pt/SiOx/TiN stack, designed to avoid interface oxides, is the best showing narrower distribution in operation voltage and cycling more than 500 times. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3243983]