Resistive switching of Ti/HfO2-based memory devices: impact of the atmosphere and the oxygen partial pressure

The electrical characteristics of different resistance states (virgin, OFF and ON) of a Ti/HfO2/TiN metal-insulator-metal device for resistance random access memory are investigated under different gas ambient. The influence of the atmosphere, the total pressure and the oxygen concentration during electrical measurements is underlined thanks to retention (I-t) and impedance spectroscopy (Z-f) measurements. The total pressure influences the current levels of the three different resistive states: when the total pressure decreases, the current increases, probably due to an increase of the concentration of oxygen vacancies in the HfO2.