Memristive effects in Titanium Dioxide

In recent years, the resistive switching of binary transition metal oxides has attracted considerable attention for application in nonvolatile memories.

For our investigations, polycrystalline rutile TiO2 thin films were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by thermal oxidation of 100nm thick e-beam evaporated Ti films. The oxidation temperature was varied between 500°C and 800°C at an oxygen partial pressure of 1 atmosphere.
Electrical contacts are provided by the Pt bottom electrode and sputtered 100nm thick Au top electrodes of 240um diameter.
We observed stable nonvolatile unipolar switching in the films oxidized at 600-800°C with an interesting long-term evolution of the resistance after the abrupt RESET process.
Furthermore, we present structural investigations of the TiO2 films.

The project is funded by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association (Virtual Institute MEMRIOX VH-VI-422).