Annealing temperature dependence of resistive switching behavior for sol-gel spin coated zinc oxide thin films

This work focuses on the resistive switching behavior of sol-gel spin coated zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films on ITO substrate. The deposited ZnO thin films were annealed at various temperatures from 300°C to 500°C in a furnace for 60 minutes in order to study the effect of annealing temperature on the resistive switching behavior of ZnO thin film. The electrical property of the thin film was characterized using 2-point probe current-voltage (I-V) measurement. The surface morphology and film thickness were examined and measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and surface profiler respectively. The I-V characteristic showed that the heat treatment on the ZnO thin films at 300 and 400°C resulted in the resistive switching characteristic behavior. Further increasing the temperature up to 500°C on the other hand leads to the formation of asymmetrical hysteresis loop.