title: Towards a quantitative description of solid electrolyte conductance switches.
abstract: We present a quantitative analysis of the steady-state electronic transport in a resistive switching device. The device is composed of a thin film of Ag(2)S (solid electrolyte) contacted by a Pt nano-contact acting as ion-blocking electrode, and a large-area Ag reference electrode. When applying a bias voltage both ionic and electronic transport occurs, and depending on the polarity it causes an accumulation of ions around the nano-contact. At small applied voltages (pre-switching) we observed this as a strongly nonlinear current-voltage curve, which is modeled using the Hebb-Wagner treatment for polarization of a mixed conductor. This model correctly describes the transport of the electrons within the polarized solid electrolyte in the steady-state up until the resistance switching, covering the entire range of non-stoichiometries, and including the supersaturation range just before the deposition of elemental silver. In this way, it is a step towards a quantitative understanding of the processes that lead to resistance switching.
authors: Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratorium, Universiteit Leiden, PO Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. morales@physics.leidenuniv.nl
authors: Monica
authors: M
authors: Morales-Masis
authors: Hans-Dieter
authors: HD
authors: Wiemhöfer
authors: Jan M
authors: JM
authors: van Ruitenbeek