Probing Intrinsic Material Conductivity in Two-Terminal Devices: A Resistance-Difference Method

TL;DR

This paper introduces a resistance-difference method that enables the separate measurement of intrinsic material resistance in two-terminal devices, even with very small resistance changes, aiding in understanding device physics.

Contribution

The paper presents an exact analytical solution for extracting intrinsic material resistance from two-terminal device measurements using a simple resistance-data analysis.

Findings

Exact solution for resistance change analysis

Applicable to small resistance variations (<0.1%)

Useful for studying non-volatile resistance memory

Abstract

It is generally impossible to separately measure the resistance of the functional component (i.e., the intrinsic device materials) and the parasitic component (i.e., terminals, interfaces and serial loads) in a two-terminal device. Yet such knowledge is important for understanding device physics and designing device systems. Here, we consider a case where an electric current, temperature, or magnetic field causes a small but identical relative conductivity change of the device materials. We find an exact solution to this relative change by a simple resistance-data analysis of similarly configured two-terminal devices. The solution is obtainable even if the change is quite small, say, less than 0.1%. In special cases of small relative changes in parasitic resistance, the absolute parasitic resistance is also obtainable. Our method is especially useful for studying the switching and transport characteristics of the emergent non-volatile resistance memory.