Performance improvement of Cu x O resistive switching memory by surface modification

The Cu _x O films grown by plasma oxidation are composed of an insulating CuO layer and a conductive gradient Cu _x O layer. We found that the surface CuO layer influenced the switching behaviors greatly. Giant improvement of reliable endurance was achieved after annealing the device in the N₂ atmosphere, resulting from the transition of CuO to Cu₂O. The possible mechanism for this improvement is attributed to the alleviation of over-programming during forming process. The result shows that for resistance switching Cu₂O is much more preferred than CuO. After further reducing the thickness of Cu₂O layer, the forming voltage can be totally eliminated.