Issue 10, 2024

Oxygen tracer diffusion in amorphous hafnia films for resistive memory

Abstract

The oxygen diffusion rate in hafnia (HfO2)-based resistive memory plays a pivotal role in enabling nonvolatile data retention. However, the information retention times obtained in HfO2 resistive memory devices are many times higher than the expected values obtained from oxygen diffusion measurements in HfO2 materials. In this study, we resolve this discrepancy by conducting oxygen isotope tracer diffusion measurements in amorphous hafnia (a-HfO2) thin films. Our results show that the oxygen tracer diffusion in amorphous HfO2 films is orders of magnitude lower than that of previous measurements on monoclinic hafnia (m-HfO2) pellets. Moreover, oxygen tracer diffusion is much lower in denser a-HfO2 films deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) than in less dense a-HfO2 films deposited by sputtering. The ALD films yield similar oxygen diffusion times as experimentally measured device retention times, reconciling this discrepancy between oxygen diffusion and retention time measurements. More broadly, our work shows how processing conditions can be used to control oxygen transport characteristics in amorphous materials without long-range crystal order.

Graphical abstract: Oxygen tracer diffusion in amorphous hafnia films for resistive memory

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
09 Dec 2023
Accepted
26 Feb 2024
First published
20 Mar 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Mater. Horiz., 2024,11, 2372-2381

Oxygen tracer diffusion in amorphous hafnia films for resistive memory

D. Shin, A. V. Ievlev, K. Beckmann, J. Li, P. Ren, N. Cady and Y. Li, Mater. Horiz., 2024, 11, 2372 DOI: 10.1039/D3MH02113K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements