Resistive Switching Characteristic of Low-Temperature Top-Electrode-Free Tin-Oxide Memristor

This brief investigated bipolar resistive switching (RS) characteristic of a top-electrode-free sol-gel SnOx resistive memory, which was fabricated at a low temperature of 120 °C. The RS characteristic was obtained by directly using a probe tip to make an electrical point contact with the SnO
_x
surface. The SnO
_x
memristor exhibited a remarkable memory window of 10
³
and it can operate over 500 dc cycles without noticeable degradation. Oxygen ion storage and release from a chemically active top-electrode, which were commonly used to explain RS, seem not applicable to this SnO
_x
memristor. The SnO
_x
film was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. The physical mechanisms of the conduction current and the RS behavior were also explored.