Nitrogen doping effect in Ag-SbTe solid electrolyte for programmable metallisation cell memory

Solid electrolytes with a small on-state resistance enable a large read margin and high speed for programmable metallisation cell memory devices. It has been believed that the increase of control current is the only effective method of on-state resistance reduction, but it does not reflect a requirement for low power consumption. Proposed is a new approach to reduce on-state resistance while maintaining the control current. It was found that nitrogen doping into the SbTe chalcogenide glass, constituting solid electrolytes, decreased on-state resistance and stabilised the switching characteristics of the fabricated devices. The nitrogen-doped SbTe chalcogenide glass formed into the solid electrolyte of a small thickness, which resulted in reduced on-state resistance.