Performance improvement of Cu x O resistive switching memory by surface modification

The Cu (x) O films grown by plasma oxidation are composed of an insulating CuO layer and a conductive gradient Cu (x) O layer. We found that the surface CuO layer influenced the switching behaviors greatly. Giant improvement of reliable endurance was achieved after annealing the device in the N-2 atmosphere, resulting from the transition of CuO to Cu2O. The possible mechanism for this improvement is attributed to the alleviation of over-programming during forming process. The result shows that for resistance switching Cu2O is much more preferred than CuO. After further reducing the thickness of Cu2O layer, the forming voltage can be totally eliminated.