Improved Uniformity and Endurance Through Suppression of Filament Overgrowth in Electrochemical Metallization Memory With AgInSbTe Buffer Layer

Abstract

We demonstrated an effective approach to suppress conductive filament (CF) overgrowth through the introduction of a AgInSbTe (AIST) buffer layer into amorphous carbon-based electrochemical metallization memory devices. The overshoot current (I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OS</sub> ) was monitored in real-time for the devices with and without the AIST layer. Our results indicates that the I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OS</sub> was eliminated after insertion of the buffer layer. The effect of the AIST layer on CF overgrowth suppression could be attributed to the lower V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SET</sub> and capacity to hold excess Ag-ions. The optimized Pt/a-C/AIST/Ag devices exhibited highly uniform switching parameters, fast switching speed (<;50 ns) and excellent cycling endurance (5×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</sup> cycles).