Elsevier

Materials Research Bulletin

Volume 46, Issue 11, November 2011, Pages 2183-2186
Materials Research Bulletin

Short communication
Resistive hysteresis in BiFeO3 thin films

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.materresbull.2011.07.030Get rights and content

Abstract

Capacitor-like Au/BiFeO3/SrRuO3 thin film with (1 1 1) orientation was grown on the SrTiO3 (1 1 1) substrate by radio frequency magnetic sputtering. It shows a resistive switching behavior, where a stable hysteresis in current–voltage curve was well developed by applying an optimum voltage at room temperature, and it reached the saturation at a bias voltage of 8 V. The Child's law in Vmax  0 direction and the interface-limited Fowler–Nordheim tunneling in 0  Vmax direction, together with the polarization reversal in the BiFeO3 barrier, are shown to involve in the observed resistive hysteresis.

Highlights

► Leakage mechanism is used to investigate the origin of resistive hysteresis in BiFeO3. ► Child's law and interface-limited F-N tunneling are responsible for resistive hysteresis. ► BiFeO3 thin film is a promising candidate material for RRAM.

Introduction

Resistive switching offers a potential alternative of information storage to the charge-based storages owing to its no scaling limit [1]. Indeed, the resistive switching induced by applied electric field has been recently given to considerable attention for storage applications [1], [2]. Several systems have been demonstrated for the resistive switching [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Considerable stable resistive switching has been observed with certain ferroelectric systems, which have attracted increasing attention as candidates for the resistive information storage [3], although the physical origin of resistive hysteresis is still controversial. BiFeO3 (BFO) thin film possesses a giant remanent polarization, a room-temperature magnetization, and a high Curie temperature (Tc = 1103 K), promising as a candidate material for several technologically demanding applications [8]. Although the switchable ferroelectric diode-like behavior has been reported for the BFO single crystal [9], few studies have been made of the resistive hysteresis in the BFO thin film in the “metal–ferroelectrics–metal” structure. Therefore, it is of considerable interest to investigate the feasibility of realizing the resistive behavior for the BFO thin films.

In this paper, we report the resistive switching of BFO thin films in capacitor like structure of ∼300 nm in thickness at room temperature. Based on the investigation into their IV behavior, the dominant process responsible for the resistive switching is demonstrated.

Section snippets

Experimental procedure

BFO thin films were deposited by rf sputtering from pre-fabricated BFO ceramic target. The (1 1 1)-oriented BFO thin film was deposited on the SrRuO3 (SRO)/SrTiO3 (STO) (1 1 1) substrate at the substrate temperature of 650 °C. The BFO thin film and SRO buffer layer were deposited under a rf power of respective 120 W and 80 W, and the rf deposition was carried out under a base pressure of 3.0 × 10−6 Torr and a deposition pressure of 10 mTorr with Ar and O2 at a ratio of 4:1. Circular Au top electrodes of

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 plots the IV curves of the BFO thin film, and several interested phenomena were observed. Firstly, the resistive hysteresis appears to be voltage dependent. That is, an appropriate resistive hysteresis of IV curve is developed only at the applied bias voltage (Vbias) > 5 V, and no resistive hysteresis was observed at Vbias  5 V. Secondly, the diode-like behavior is largely absent in the voltage range investigated. Indeed, a distinctive leakage change is not observed, and the rectification

Conclusions

The capacitor-like Au/BiFeO3/SrRuO3 thin film with a (1 1 1) orientation demonstrates a resistive switching at the applied voltages of more than 6 V. The behavior of resistive hysteresis stays almost unchanged in 8–12 V, where the dip biases increase with increasing bias voltage owing to the formation of depolarization field. The Child's law conduction and interface-limited F-N tunneling in Vmax  0 and 0  Vmax directions are shown to contribute towards the formation of resistive hysteresis, together

Acknowledgements

Dr. Jiagang Wu gratefully acknowledges the supports of the introduction of talent start funds of Sichuan University (2082204144033), the Sichuan University, and the National University of Singapore.

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