Effect of annealing treatment on the electrical characteristics of Pt/Cr-embedded ZnO/Pt resistance random access memory devices

ZnO/Cr/ZnO trilayer films sandwiched with Pt electrodes were prepared for nonvolatile resistive memory applications. The threshold voltage of a ZnO device embedded with a 3-nm Cr interlayer was approximately 50% lower than that of a ZnO monolayer device. This study investigated threshold voltage as a function of Cr thickness. Both the ZnO monolayer device and the Cr-embedded ZnO device structures exhibited resistance switching under electrical bias both before and after rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatment, but resistive switching effects in the two cases exhibited distinct characteristics. Compared with the as-fabricated device, the memory cell after RTA demonstrated remarkable device parameter improvements, including a lower threshold voltage, a lower write current, and a higher R_off/R_on ratio. Both transmission electron microscope observations and Auger electron spectroscopy revealed that the Cr charge trapping layer in Cr-embedded ZnO dispersed uniformly into the storage medium after RTA, and x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses demonstrated that the Cr atoms lost electrons to become Cr³⁺ ions after dispersion. These results indicated that the altered status of Cr in ZnO/Cr/ZnO trilayer films during RTA treatment was responsible for the switching mechanism transition.