Resistive switching in thin multiferroic films

Resistive switching properties of multiferroic BiFeO
₃
and YMnO
₃
thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition technique have been investigated. Both material systems sandwiched between Au top and Pt/Ti bottom electrodes reveal nonvolatile resistive switching upon application of an electric field. BiFeO
₃
is switching in bipolar mode when a positive and negative bias is applied. The resistance ratio between high resistance and low resistance state is larger than two orders of magnitude. In contrary to BiFeO
₃
, YMnO
₃
shows a unipolar resistive switching of abrupt nature with the difference up to five orders of magnitude between both resistance states. This work presents the results on resistive switching in BiFeO
₃
and YMnO
₃
and discusses the mechanisms of observed phenomena. Possible applications of our findings are shown on the example of nonvolatile data storage devices.