Diverse resistive switching behaviors of AlN thin films with different orientations

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films with different orientations (i.e., amorphous, (100)- and (002)-oriented) are deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates via the radio-frequency (RF) sputtering method. Among the three films, the amorphous AlN film is found to provide both the lowest leakage current (2.6 × 10−11 A) and the largest memory window size (3.1 × 106). Moreover, the observation results suggest that the thermal activation energy has a greater effect on the conduction behavior of the Ag/AlN/Pt structures than the microstructure, surface morphology, or chemical bonds.