Fabrication of highly resistive NiO thin films for nanoelectronic applications

TL;DR

This paper reports on optimizing NiO thin film fabrication via sputtering, identifying an insulating phase suitable for nanoelectronic devices, and demonstrating initial switching behavior at nanoscale.

Contribution

It introduces a factorial experiment and cluster analysis to optimize NiO thin films, successfully fabricating nanoscale devices with insulating properties.

Findings

Identification of the insulating phase in NiO films

Successful fabrication of nanoscale devices

Initial switching behavior demonstrated

Abstract

Thin films of the prototypical charge transfer insulator NiO appear to be a promising material for novel nanoelectronic devices. The fabrication of the material is challenging however, and mostly a p-type semiconducting phase is reported. Here, the results of a factorial experiment are presented that allow optimization of the film properties of thin films deposited using sputtering. A cluster analysis is performed, and four main types of films are found. Among them, the desired insulating phase is identified. From this material, nanoscale devices are fabricated, which demonstrate that the results carry over to relevant length scales. Initial switching results are reported.