Characteristics of multilevel storage and switching dynamics in resistive switching cell of Al₂O₃/HfO₂/Al₂O₃ sandwich structure

We reported an Al₂O₃/HfO₂/Al₂O₃ sandwich structure resistive switching device with significant improvement of multilevel cell (MLC) operation capability, which exhibited that four stable and distinct resistance states (one low resistance state and three high resistance states) can be achieved by controlling the Reset stop voltages (V _Reset-stop) during the Reset operation. The improved MLC operation capability can be attributed to the R _HRS/R _LRS ratio enhancement resulting from increasing of the series resistance and decreasing of leakage current by inserting two Al₂O₃ layers. For the high-speed switching applications, we studied the initial switching dynamics by using the measurements of the pulse width and amplitude dependence of Set and Reset switching characteristics. The results showed that under the same pulse amplitude conditions, the initial Set progress is faster than the initial Reset progress, which can be explained by thermal-assisted electric field induced rupture model in the oxygen vacancies conductive filament. Thus, proper combination of varying pulse amplitude and width can help us to optimize the device operation parameters. Moreover, the device demonstrated ultrafast program/erase speed (10 ns) and good pulse switching endurance (10⁵ cycles) characteristics, which are suitable for high-density and fast-speed nonvolatile memory applications. (paper)