Area-Type Electronic Bipolar Resistive Switching of Pt/Al₂O₃/Si₃N_3.0/Ti with Forming-Free, Self-Rectification, and Nonlinear Characteristics

Herein, electronic bipolar resistive switching of Pt/Al₂O₃/Si₃N_3.0/Ti device is investigated. The Pt/Si₃N_3.0/Ti device demonstrates bipolar resistive switching with set (reset) at negative (positive) bias, and the mechanism is revealed to be that the conduction filament, formed by percolation of the traps in defective silicon nitride thin film, is involved in the resistive switching. However, instead of the conduction filament, trapping and detrapping of the electrons in the trap sites of Si₃N_3.0 become the dominant switching mechanism by introducing an Al₂O₃ barrier layer between Pt and Si₃N_3.0, and the device has forming-free, self-rectifying, and nonlinear characteristics, which are necessary to the cross-bar array (CBA) configuration. The optimized thickness of the Al₂O₃ barrier layer is 4 nm. A detailed electrical analysis is performed to identify the switching mechanism of the device. Also, the read/write margin is calculated using H simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis (HSPICE) to estimate the available CBA cell size.