Controlling diffusion dynamics with electrode engineering for stable and reliable resistive switching in AlN/Ag-based CBRAM

Due to high scalability, quick operating speed, wide dynamic on–off resistance range, and analog current switching, cation migration-based conductive bridge random access memory (CBRAM) has received much attention for a wide range of applications including data storage, logic gates, and neuromorphic circuits. However, Inadequate controllability of metal-ion injection and the creation of numerous filaments are the major issues for the switching stability. In this work, we investigated Ag/Ta/Ag stacked electrode structure to improve cycle-to-cycle and device-to-device switching uniformity by controlling the Ag-ion diffusion into the host material. The device shows stable dc endurance for 100 switching cycles without much degradation. The data retention behavior for 104 s is observed in the stacked electrode device at room temperature as well as an elevated temperature of 80 °C. The proposed device emulates biological synaptic functionality by demonstrating long-term potentiation(LTP) and depression (LTD) behavior for 10 epochs.