Complementary Resistive Switching in ZnO/Al2O3 Bi-Layer Devices

This paper reports the complementary resistive switching (CRS) characteristics exhibited by Au/ZnO/Al2O3/Fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) bilayer device for the first time, where both ZnO and Al2O3 are active switching layers exhibiting resistive switching properties. The I-V characteristics of the device initially show bipolar resistive switching (BRS) for a few cycles (similar to 12) before permanently switching to CRS with the extension of SET voltage. The stable CRS state of the device exhibits a high current of similar to 500 mu A during the ON-state and low current of 3 x 10(-7) A during OFF-state at low input voltages (-0.5 V to 0.5 V) enables the proposed device suitable to use in crossbar array to mitigate the sneak path current. The device performance to write and read processes is evaluated with pulses of magnitudes similar to|2.5| V and 1.3 V, respectively, and showed a similar to 60 mu A difference in read-out current between data bits 0 and 1. Similarly, the device's power consumption is also measured to elucidate that the device is suitable to use as a memory unit with power consumption in the order of microwatts (mu W). Further, the possible switching mechanism is demonstrated based on oxygen vacancies migration.