Investigation of Resistive Switching in Cu/a-SiC/P⁺-Si Structure for Multilevel Nonvolatile Memory Applications

Here, the resistive switching characteristics in a Cu/a-SiC/P+-Si sandwiched structure are systematically investigated for multilevel nonvolatile memory applications. The formation of Cu conducting filaments is believed to be the switching mechanism through temperature-dependent testing. Four distinguished resistance states can be achieved in the Cu/a-SiC/P+-Si memory device through the modulation of suitable compliance current, which could be attributed to the formation of more conductive filaments when applying a higher compliance current during the Set process. In addition, these different resistance values can be easily distinguished and show reliable retention (~105 s), with the temperature even reaching 85 °C, which offers considerable potential for high-density RRAM applications.