Performance improvement of Cu_xO resistive switching memory by surface modification

摘要

The Cu_xO films grown by plasma oxidation are composed of an insulating CuO layer and a conductive gradient Cu_xO layer. We found that the surface CuO layer influenced the switching behaviors greatly. Giant improvement of reliable endurance was achieved after annealing the device in the N_2 atmosphere, resulting from the transition of CuO to Cu_2O. The possible mechanism for this improvement is attributed to the alleviation of over-programming during forming process. The result shows that for resistance switching Cu_2O is much more preferred than CuO. After further reducing the thickness of Cu_2O layer, the forming voltage can be totally eliminated.