Structural engineering of tantalum oxide based memristor and its electrical switching responses using rapid thermal annealing

Highlights: • N₂ at 700 °C rapid thermal annealing (RTA) was carried out on the sputtered Ta₂O₅. • RTA makes structural change from amorphous to polycrystalline state leading to pseudo-switching characteristics. • Gradual change of current and conductance with RTA processed Ta₂O_5-x thin film is favorable for synaptic behaviors. We have demonstrated the co-existence of reliable analog and digital switching characteristics with tantalum oxide based memristor by appropriate rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The device without RTA exhibits a digital SET and multilevel RESET for positive and negative sweeps, respectively. On the other hands, the device shows only analog switching characteristics such that current level increases and decreases gradually for successive positive and negative voltage sweeps, respectively, before any electroforming process with the RTA in the nitrogen ambient at the crystalline temperature of tantalum oxide which is 700 °C for 60 s. Once electroforming process is done, the device exhibits a reliable digital switching with SET at positive sweep and RESET at negative sweep voltages. In the analog state of the device we successfully emulate the synaptic characteristic of the device like spike-rate dependent plasticity (SRDP), pulse-paired facilitation (PPF) and post-tetanic potentiation (PTP). Finally, the Hermann Ebbinghaus forgetting curve is obtained from these devices. The conversion of the device from the digital SET and multilevel RESET to analogue switching is attributed to structural transition of amorphous tantalum oxide to polycrystalline tantalum oxide, different defect density and interface variation in the device.