Rational Design on Controllable Cation Injection with Improved Conductive-Bridge Random Access Memory by Glancing Angle Deposition Technology toward Neuromorphic Application

A conductive-bridge random access memory (CBRAM) has been considered a promising candidate for the next-generation nonvolatile memory technology because of its excellent performance, for which the resistive switching behavior depends on the formation/dissolution of conducting filaments in an electrolyte layer originated by the cation injection from the active electrode with electrochemical reactions. Typically, the controllability of cations into the electrolyte layer is a main issue, leading to stable switching reliability. In this work, an architecture combining spike-shaped Ag electrodes created by Al2O3 nanopillar arrays as a physical diffusion barrier by glancing angle deposition technology was proposed to localize Ag cation injection for the formation of controllable filaments inside TiOx as the switching layer. Interestingly, the dimension of the Ag plugs defined by the topography of Al2O3 nanopillar arrays can control Ag cation injection to influence the dimensionality of conductive filaments. Compared to the typical planar-Ag/TiOx/Pt device, the spiked-Ag/Al2O3 nanopillar arrays/TiOx/Pt device shows improvement of endurance and voltage disturbance. With enhanced multilevel characteristics, the spiked active-metal-based CBRAM device can be expected to serve as an analogue synapse for neuromorphic applications.