Observation of AlO x material in electrical resistive switching for nonvolatile random access memory application

We fabricated an Al / AlO x / Al device by using a RF magnetron sputter system. The device showed a unipolar resistive switching process. In this study, the switching mechanism of the device followed the conductive filament model. The conduction mechanisms for the conductive filament model were explained by using Ohmic conduction for the low resistance state (LRS) and Schottky emission for the high resistance state (HRS). The average value of the resistance ratio between the HRS and the LRS was about 3.48 × 107 when the reading voltage (0.1 V) was achieved. The electrical property of the endurance was achieved under 50 switching cycles. A low switching voltage could be obtained for a low power consuming device. These results proved that the AlO x material has various possibilities for use in nonvolatile random access memory applications.