Activation Energy Distribution of Dynamical Structural Defects in Ru O 2 Films

Ruthenium dioxide is an important material, widely used in nanoelectronic devices and interconnects, supercapacitors, and as a catalyst. A good understanding of the origin of the low-frequency $1/f$ noise in RuO${}_{2}$'s resistivity will advance the design and efficiency of these applications. The authors demonstrate that the flicker noise in RuO${}_{2}$ films originates from fluctuating oxygen vacancies, which act as dynamical structural defects, and they quantify the activation-energy distribution function of these dynamical defects and calculate the oxygen-vacancy density from the measured temperature dependence of the $1/f$ noise.