Bipolar resistance switching characteristics in TiN/ZnO:Mn/Pt junctions developed for nonvolatile resistive memory application.

As conventional flash memory is approaching its fundamental scaling limit, there is an urgent demand for an alternative nonvolatile memory technology at present. Resistance-switching random access memory has attracted extensive interests due to its nonvolatile nature, good scalability, and simple structure. In this work, TiN/ZnO:Mn/Pt junctions, which employ a conductive compound TiN as the top electrode to replace regular metal electrodes, were fabricated and investigated for nonvolatile resistive memory applications. These junctions exhibit bistable resistance state at room temperature, and the devices can be reproducibly switched between the two resistance states by applying bidirectional voltage biases. Moreover, both resistance states are demonstrated to retain for more than 10(4) s without electrical power, demonstrating a nonvolatile nature of the memory device. The mechanism of resistance switching effects in TiN/ZnO:Mn/Pt junctions is interpreted in terms of the drift of oxygen vacancies and the resultant formation/annihilation of local conductive channels through ZnO:Mn/Pt Schottky barrier.