Memristive Behavior of Plasma Treated TiO2 Thin Films

Abstract

This paper reports the fabrication method and the essential electrical and physical characteristics of a memristive device using titania as an active layer. Two layers of titania thin film were grown by the RF-magnetron sputtering technique onto silicon substrates. The surface of the first titania layer was treated by argon plasma to produce oxygen vacancies which are important for the memristive behavior. The plasma-treated sample was compared with an as-deposited (without plasma treatment) sample to investigate the effect of the plasma treatment. Current–voltage (I-V) curves of the samples were measured by sweeping the voltage from 0V to -5V, -5V to 5V then back to 0V. It was proven that the sample with plasma treatment exhibits better memristive behavior than the sample without plasma treatment. This is due to the reduction of oxygen vacancies during the plasma treatment, whereby the as-deposited sample and the treated sample have 60.59 wt% and 60.03 wt% respectively and the thickness of the sample reduces from 95.8 nm to 85.3 nm.