Molecular dynamics simulations of oxide memristors: crystal field effects

TL;DR

This paper uses molecular dynamics simulations to study how crystal field effects influence the behavior and stability of oxygen vacancies in oxide memristors, revealing pattern formation and non-volatile switching.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation approach incorporating crystal field effects to analyze vacancy distributions and stability in oxide memristors, highlighting new pattern formation phenomena.

Findings

Vacancy distributions depend on the ratio of crystal field period to vacancy interaction radius.

Crystal fields induce stable, ordered vacancy patterns and spatial voids.

Simulated devices exhibit non-volatile switching due to stabilized vacancy arrangements.

Abstract

We present molecular-dynamic simulations of memory resistors (memristors) including the crystal field effects on mobile ionic species such as oxygen vacancies appearing during operation of the device. Vacancy distributions show different patterns depending on the ratio of a spatial period of the crystal field to a characteristic radius of the vacancy-vacancy interaction. There are signatures of the orientational order and of spatial voids in the vacancy distributions for some crystal field potentials. The crystal field stabilizes the patterns after they are formed, resulting in a non-volatile switching of the simulated devices.