Amorphous zinc-doped silicon oxide (SZO) resistive switching memory: manipulated bias control from selector to memristor

Manipulated bias control of a selector to a memristor was demonstrated in Zn-doped amorphous SiOx (SZO) films, within which ZnOx/Zn nanoclusters were segregated. For the selector, namely diode-like (pre-forming) switching, the threshold voltage varied from 9 to 2.7 V. with a resistance ratio of similar to 10(4), by tuning the concentration of ZnOx/Zn nanoclusters. Stable bipolar resistive switching was achieved by current-controlled RESET and voltage-controlled SET processes. The working mechanism of the selector was explained by a transport mechanism which involved the "generalized trap-assisted tunnelling" of electrons resulting from doping with ZnOx/Zn nanoclusters. The dual-switching-mode of SZO provides a promising application for 3D cross-bar RRAM.