title: Spectromicroscopic insights for rational design of redox-based memristive devices.
abstract: The demand for highly scalable, low-power devices for data storage and logic operations is strongly stimulating research into resistive switching as a novel concept for future non-volatile memory devices. To meet technological requirements, it is imperative to have a set of material design rules based on fundamental material physics, but deriving such rules is proving challenging. Here, we elucidate both switching mechanism and failure mechanism in the valence-change model material SrTiO3, and on this basis we derive a design rule for failure-resistant devices. Spectromicroscopy reveals that the resistance change during device operation and failure is indeed caused by nanoscale oxygen migration resulting in localized valence changes between Ti(4+) and Ti(3+). While fast reoxidation typically results in retention failure in SrTiO3, local phase separation within the switching filament stabilizes the retention. Mimicking this phase separation by intentionally introducing retention-stabilization layers with slow oxygen transport improves retention times considerably.
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baeumer
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmitz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physical Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University and JARA-FIT, 52056 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Amr H H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Ramadan
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.|Ernst Ruska-Centre, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and RWTH Aachen University, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Hongchu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Skaja
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Vitaliy
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Feyer
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Benedikt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Arndt
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.|Ernst Ruska-Centre, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and RWTH Aachen University, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Chun-Lin
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.|Ernst Ruska-Centre, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and RWTH Aachen University, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physical Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University and JARA-FIT, 52056 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Roger A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: De Souza
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Michael Schneider
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.|Institute of Materials in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology II, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Waser
authors.affiliation: Peter Gruenberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH and JARA-FIT, 52425 Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Regina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dittmann