Using Dopants to Tune Oxygen Vacancy Formation in Transition Metal Oxide Resistive Memory

Introducing dopants is an important way to tailor and improve electronic properties of transition metal oxides used as high-k dielectric thin films and resistance switching layers in leading memory technologies, such as dynamic and resistive random access memory (ReRAM). Ta₂O₅ has recently received increasing interest because Ta₂O₅-based ReRAM demonstrates high switching speed, long endurance, and low operating voltage. However, advances in optimizing device characteristics with dopants have been hindered by limited and contradictory experiments in this field. We report on a systematic study on how various metal dopants affect oxygen vacancy formation in crystalline and amorphous Ta₂O₅ from first principles. We find that isoelectronic dopants and weak n-type dopants have little impact on neutral vacancy formation energy and that p-type dopants can lower the formation energy significantly by introducing holes into the system. In contrast, n-type dopants have a deleterious effect and actually increase the formation energy for charged oxygen vacancies. Given the similar doping trend reported for other binary transition metal oxides, this doping trend should be universally valid for typical binary transition metal oxides. Based on this guideline, we propose that p-type dopants (Al, Hf, Zr, and Ti) can lower the forming/set voltage and improve retention properties of Ta₂O₅ ReRAM.