Control of conducting filaments in TiO2 films by a thin interfacial conducting oxide layer at the cathode

The influences of the conducting oxide layer and phases of TiO2 on the electroforming behavior of TiO2 films on Ru were studied for unipolar resistive switching. The thin RuO2 layer makes the conducting filaments (CF) too strong due to a limited oxygen supply and accompanying high power consumption. When the oxygen supply was too high (TiO2 film on thick RuO2), CF formation was essentially disturbed and no switching occurs. The phase of TiO2 does not have any relevance to the resistance switching. Fluent and uniform switching was achieved by spatially confining the CF to a local area. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4793577]