The role of oxygen vacancies in the high cycling endurance and quantum conductance in BiVO4‐based resistive switching memory

Abstract

Abstract Resistive random access memory (RRAM) has emerged as a new discipline promoting the development of new materials and devices toward a broad range of electronic and energy applications. Here, we realized a memristive device with weak dependence on the top electrodes and demonstrated the quantized conductance (QC) nature in BiVO4 matrix. The electronic properties have been investigated by the measurements of I‐V curves, where the resistive switching (RS) phenomenon with stable switching ratio and excellent long‐term retention capabilities are identified. Two more inert materials, TiN and Pd, are applied as the top electrodes to exclude the influence of electrodes on the RS states and QC behavior. The X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy results and transport measurements reveal that the conductive filament (CF) is composed by elemental bismuth. The naturally existed oxygen vacancies in BiVO4 matrix plays as the role of catalyst in the formation and dissolution of CF in BiVO4‐based RRAM device, which is the primary cause for the observed weak dependence of switching performance in this device on the type of top electrodes. Our results clearly illustrate that BiVO4 could be a new idea platform to realize the high scalability, high cycling endurance, and multilevel storage RRAM devices.

Keywords

• Bi nanowires
• BiVO4
• quantum conductance
• RRAM