Scalability of Voltage-Controlled Filamentary and Nanometallic Resistance Memories

TL;DR

This paper investigates the physical principles behind scalable resistance memory devices, demonstrating voltage-controlled switching in filamentary and nanometallic RRAM, and establishing criteria for their area scalability at the nanoscale.

Contribution

It provides a physical basis for designing scalable RRAM devices by demonstrating voltage-controlled switching and area scalability in both filamentary and nanometallic RRAM.

Findings

Voltage-controlled switching demonstrated in macro and nano devices.

Area scalability achieved for low and high resistance states.

Nanometallic RRAM switches uniformly without forming.

Abstract

Much effort has been devoted to device and materials engineering to realize nanoscale resistance random access memory (RRAM) for practical applications, but there still lacks a rational physical basis to be relied on to design scalable devices spanning many length scales. In particular, the critical switching criterion is not clear for RRAM devices in which resistance changes are limited to localized nanoscale filaments that experience concentrated heat, electric current and field. Here, we demonstrate voltage-controlled resistance switching for macro and nano devices in both filamentary RRAM and nanometallic RRAM, the latter switches uniformly and does not require forming. As a result, using a constant current density as the compliance, we have achieved area-scalability for the low resistance state of the filamentary RRAM, and for both the low and high resistance states of the nanometallic RRAM. This finding will help design area-scalable RRAM at the nanoscale.