AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Thin Film Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session TF1+EM-WeA

Paper TF1+EM-WeA1
Application of Amorphous Zinc Tin Oxide for Memristor Devices

Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 2:00 pm, Room 109

Session: Nonvolatile Memory
Presenter: Gregory Herman, Oregon State University
Authors: G.S. Herman, Oregon State University
J.S. Rajachidambaram, Oregon State University
S. Murali, Oregon State University
J. Conley, Oregon State University
S.P. Sanghavi, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
P. Nachimuthu, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
V. Shutthanandan, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
T. Varga, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
S. Thevuthasan, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Amorphous zinc tin oxide semiconductor materials have been studied primarily as the active semiconducting material for thin film transistors with applications including transparent and flexible electronics. Due to the amorphous nature of these materials excellent uniformity can be obtained over a large area, while still having reasonably high electron mobilities (>10 cm2/Vs). Furthermore, considerable control over the electrical properties can be maintained, where insulating, semiconducting, and conductive properties can be obtained by varying the processing conditions. We have recently used sputter-deposited zinc tin oxide as a bipolar switching element in memristor devices. Memristors are a two-terminal nonvolatile data memory device that is very promising for the replacement of silicon-based Flash. A significant benefit is that memristors can be manufactured with high areal densities with potentially low manufacturing costs. A variety of oxide-based materials are being evaluated for memristors, however many of these are nanocrystalline which can lead to non-uniformity of devices. We have found that the switching properties of zinc tin oxide are closely related to the process conditions, the electrical test conditions, and the electrode materials. In this presentation we will discuss the physical and electrical characterization of the zinc tin oxide films and the switching mechanisms for these materials.