Self-rectifying effect in gold nanocrystal-embedded zirconium oxide resistive memory

The ZrO2 films with Au nanocrystals embedded (ZrO2:nc-Au) are fabricated by e-beam evaporation, and the self-rectifying effect in the Au/ZrO2:nc-Au/n+ Si sandwich structure is investigated. Self-rectifying resistive switching characteristics are obtained when the resistive memory is switched to low-resistance state (LRS). It is found that the Schottky contact at the Au/ZrO2 interface limits charge injection under reverse bias, while under forward bias the current is limited by space charge, resulting in a rectification of 7×102 under ±0.5 V at LRS, which enables the resistive memory to alleviate the cross-talk effect without additional switching elements in crossbar structure arrays. This self-rectifying resistive switching is believed to occur at a localized region and explained by a proposed model.