The role of oxygen vacancies on resistive switching properties of oxide materials

Abstract

Tuning the level of oxygen vacancies in metal oxide materials is a promising approach to enhance resistive switching properties towards memory applications. To comprehensively understand the microstructure and oxygen vacancy migration mechanism of oxide materials, recent research in controlling the concentration of oxygen vacancies and the relationship between oxygen vacancy and resistive switching behavior as well as computational study have been reviewed in this work. In particular, the role of oxygen vacancies on the resistive switching properties of various metal oxides, including transition oxides, perovskite oxides and complex oxides are discussed in this review. Moreover, different types of processing methodologies of oxygen vacant oxide materials are reviewed and compared in detail. In the end, the future trends in fine tuning the level of oxygen vacancies are reviewed and discussed.