Electrical 1D tomography of nanofilaments using in-operando electrical characterization of Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cells during FIB milling

Electrical characterization during focused ion beam (FIB) milling of an elementary Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cell is used to localize the conducting channels and to estimate the size and shape of the conducting nanofilament. A good agreement is found with cross sectional high resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) images. This methodology is a potential tool to obtain in-operando electrical tomography of conducting paths with subnanometric spatial resolution. Display Omitted In-operando electrical tomography is obtained using electrical measurements during FIB milling.In Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cells, the conducting nanofilament has a "tree-like" structure.This electrical shape is consistent with the crystalline defect map obtained from HRTEM.A subnanometric spatial resolution is achieved.An atomistic model involving oxygen vacancies is proposed.