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Highly reliable bipolar resistive switching in sol-gel derived lanthanum-doped PbTiO3 thin film: Coupling with ferroelectricity?

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Abstract

Nanoscale Pb x La1−x Ti1−x/4O3 (PLT) thin film has been fabricated on Pt\Ti\SiO2\Si substrates by chemical solution deposition (CSD) method. Ferroelectricity of the fresh-made PLT thin film has been clearly detected through piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM) by writing reversible ferroelectric domains. However, PLT thin film also shows off-standard ferroelectric hysteresis loops highly dependent on frequency, indicating large amount of mobile space charges in the film. Subsequent current-voltage (C-V) studies show that sandwich-like Pt\PLT\Pt structure exhibits notable bipolar resistive switching (BRS) characteristics with high stability (> 103 switching cycles). It is found that the C-V curves of both high- and low-resistance states have the feature of space-charge-limited current (SCLC) conduction, indicating important roles of defects in the conduction. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurement further verifies that oxygen vacancies based conductive filament mechanism is likely responsible for the observed RS effect. Our demonstration of stable RS effect in the PLT thin film and its possible coupling with ferroelectricity is promising in device development and applications, such as development of ferroelectric-tunable RS memories.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, China

    Ying Wang, Wei-Jin Chen, Xiao-Yue Zhang, Wen-Jing Ma, Biao Wang & Yue Zheng

  2. Micro & Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, China

    Ying Wang, Wei-Jin Chen, Xiao-Yue Zhang, Wen-Jing Ma, Biao Wang & Yue Zheng

Authors
  1. Ying Wang
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  2. Wei-Jin Chen
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  3. Xiao-Yue Zhang
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  4. Wen-Jing Ma
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  5. Biao Wang
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  6. Yue Zheng
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Biao Wang or Yue Zheng.

Additional information

The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51172291, 11232015, and 11302267), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, NCET in University, Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education, Fok Ying Tung Foundation, Science and Technology Innovation Project of Guangdong Provincial Education Department, and Guangdong Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholar.

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Wang, Y., Chen, WJ., Zhang, XY. et al. Highly reliable bipolar resistive switching in sol-gel derived lanthanum-doped PbTiO3 thin film: Coupling with ferroelectricity?. Acta Mech Sin 30, 526–532 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-014-0057-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-014-0057-2

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