title: Confining Cation Injection to Enhance CBRAM Performance by Nanopore Graphene Layer.
abstract: Conductive-bridge random access memory (CBRAM) is considered a strong contender of the next-generation nonvolatile memory technology. Resistive switching (RS) behavior in CBRAM is decided by the formation/dissolution of nanoscale conductive filament (CF) inside RS layer based on the cation injection from active electrode and their electrochemical reactions. Remarkably, RS is actually a localized behavior, however, cation injects from the whole area of active electrode into RS layer supplying excessive cation beyond the requirement of CF formation, leading to deterioration of device uniformity and reliability. Here, an effective method is proposed to localize cation injection into RS layer through the nanohole of inserted ion barrier between active electrode and RS layer. Taking an impermeable monolayer graphene as ion barrier, conductive atomic force microscopy results directly confirm that CF formation is confined through the nanohole of graphene due to the localized cation injection. Compared with the typical Cu/HfO2/Pt CBRAM device, the novel Cu/nanohole-graphene/HfO2/Pt device shows improvement of uniformity, endurance, and retention characteristics, because the cation injection is limited by the nanohole graphene. Scaling the nanohole of ion barrier down to several nanometers, the single-CF-based CBRAM device with high performance is expected to achieve by confining the cation injection at the atomic scale.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Department of Physics, Hubei Nuclear Solid Physics Key Laboratory and Center for Ion Beam Application, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Sen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Jiebin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hubei Nuclear Solid Physics Key Laboratory and Center for Ion Beam Application, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hubei Nuclear Solid Physics Key Laboratory and Center for Ion Beam Application, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Xiangheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Hangbing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Shibing
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Writam
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Banerjee
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hubei Nuclear Solid Physics Key Laboratory and Center for Ion Beam Application, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Wenqing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hubei Nuclear Solid Physics Key Laboratory and Center for Ion Beam Application, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Shuyao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Si
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China.|Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing, 210009, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: conductive filaments; conductive-bridge random access memory; electrochemical metallization effect; graphene; ion barriers