Thermal transport in tantalum oxide films for memristive applications

The thermal conductivity of amorphous TaO_x memristive films having variable oxygen content is measured using time domain thermoreflectance. Furthermore, the thermal transport is described by a two-partmodel where the electrical contribution is quantified via the Wiedemann-Franz relation and the vibrational contribution by the minimum thermal conductivity limit for amorphous solids. Additionally, the vibrational contribution remains constant near 0.9 W/mK regardless of oxygen concentration, while the electrical contribution varies from 0 to 3.3 W/mK. Thus, the dominant thermal carrier in TaO_x switches between vibrations and charge carriers and is controllable either by oxygen content during deposition, or dynamically by field-induced charge state migration