Kinetic Simulation of Filament Growth Dynamics in Memristive Electrochemical Metallization Devices

TL;DR

This paper uses kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to study filament growth in memristive devices, revealing new growth modes and matching experimental data across multiple switching cycles.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive kinetic model capable of simulating multiple filament growth and dissolution cycles, including unexpected growth modes.

Findings

Simulation results agree with experimental data

Discovered a new filament growth mode

Model captures multi-cycle switching behavior

Abstract

In this work we report on kinetic Monte-Carlo calculations of resistive switching and the underlying growth dynamics of filaments in an electrochemical metallization device consisting of an Ag/TiO2/Pt sandwich-like thin film system. The developed model is not limited to i) fast time scale dynamics and ii) only one growth and dissolution cycle of metallic filaments. In particular, we present results from the simulation of consecutive cycles. We find that the numerical results are in excellent agreement with experimentally obtained data. Additionally, we observe an unexpected filament growth mode which is in contradiction to the widely acknowledged picture of filament growth, but consistent with recent experimental findings.