Giant Electroresistance in Ferroionic Tunnel Junctions

• Published in: iScience Vol. 16; pp. 368 - 377
• Main Authors: Li, Jiankun, Li, Ning, Ge, Chen, Huang, Heyi, Sun, Yuanwei, Gao, Peng, He, Meng, Wang, Can, Yang, Guozhen, Jin, Kuijuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier 28.06.2019
• Subjects: Devices; Interface Science; Transport Property of Condensed Matter
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.05.043

Oxide-based resistive switching devices, including ferroelectric tunnel junctions and resistance random access memory, are promising candidates for the next-generation non-volatile memory technology. In this work, we propose a ferroionic tunnel junction to realize a giant electroresistance. It functions as a ferroelectric tunnel junction at low resistance state and as a Schottky junction at high resistance state, due to interface engineering through the field-induced migration of oxygen vacancies. An extremely large electroresistance with ON/OFF ratios of 5.1×10 at room temperature and 2.1×10 at 10 K is achieved, using an ultrathin BaTiO layer as the ferroelectric barrier and a semiconducting Nb-doped SrTiO substrate as the bottom electrode. The results point toward an appealing way for the design of high-performance resistive switching devices based on ultrathin oxide heterostructures by ionic controlled interface engineering.