Comparison of electric field dependent activation energy for electroformation in TaOx and TiOx based RRAMs

Oxide based resistive switching memories are considered to be one of the front-runners for the next generation non-volatile memories. Forming, the critical one time programming process, is not well understood. In this work, we try to understand the dynamics of forming process in two model systems - TaO_x and TiO_x, and compare the similarities and the universality in its control parameters. After comparing the time, voltage and temperature dependent dynamics, we find that a 1/E (E being electric field) dependence causes the activation energy to reduce by more than an order of magnitude.