Resistive Switching Effect in Thermal SiO2 Films Treated in Electron-Cyclotron Resonance Hydrogen Plasma

The manufacturing technology of p
⁺⁺
-Si/SiOx/Ni memristor structures was developed. The SiOx functional layer was obtained by the processing of thermal silicon oxide in hydrogen electron-cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma. Varying plasma processing parameters made it possible to obtain n
⁺⁺
-Si/SiOx/Ni memristor structures with the x coefficient ranging from 1.79 to 2.0 and the oxide layer thickness from 14 to 20 nm. All obtained structures exhibited bipolar reversible resistive switching. Minimal forming voltages (≈7 V) were obtained for the samples with x = 1.79-1.83. In addition, all of the obtained memristors demonstrated a sufficiently large ratio of currents in low- and high-resistance states (memory window) amounting to 3 - 4 orders of magnitude.