Improved endurance behavior of resistive switching in (Ba,Sr)TiO3 thin films with W top electrode

Abstract

We compared the resistive switching performance of barium strontium titanate (BST) thin films with tungsten (W) and platinum (Pt) top electrodes, respectively. The yield, endurance, and reliability were strongly improved for the samples with W top electrode. Whereas the samples with Pt top electrode show a fast drop in the resistance for both high and low resistance states, the devices with W top electrode can be switched for 104 times without any obvious degradation. We attribute the improved switching performance to a reversible oxidation and reduction in a WOx layer at the W-BST interface, which was detected by time-of-flight secondary-ion-mass spectroscopy measurements.