title: The switching location of a bipolar memristor: chemical, thermal and structural mapping.
abstract: Memristors are memory resistors promising a rapid integration into future memory technologies. However, progress is still critically limited by a lack of understanding of the physical processes occurring at the nanoscale. Here we correlate device electrical characteristics with local atomic structure, chemistry and temperature. We resolved a single conducting channel that is made up of a reduced phase of the as-deposited titanium oxide. Moreover, we observed sufficient Joule heating to induce a crystallization of the oxide surrounding the channel, with a peculiar pattern that finite element simulations correlated with the existence of a hot spot close to the bottom electrode, thus identifying the switching location. This work reports direct observations in all three dimensions of the internal structure of titanium oxide memristors.
authors.affiliation: Nanoelectronic Research Group, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.
authors.forename: John Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Strachan
authors.forename: Dmitri B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Strukov
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Borghetti
authors.forename: J Joshua
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Gilberto
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Medeiros-Ribeiro
authors.forename: R Stanley
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Williams