Controllable Filament With Electric Field Engineering for Resistive Switching Uniformity

Variations in SET and RESET voltages during resistive switching cause problems for transition-metal-oxide-based resistive memory applications. The random circuit breaker network model has illustrated that the random formation and rupture of conducting filaments result in this instability. A solution consisting of a carefully designed electric field redistribution is proposed to minimize these variations. This switching behavior occurs in an ultrathin Al₂O₃ film very near to the anode rather than occurring in a random distribution over a large region. The SET voltage distribution is narrowed by a factor of seven, and consequently, the RESET voltage distribution is confined near a fixed value.