Experimental Validation of Switching Dependence of Nanoscale Y2O3 Memristors on Electrode Symmetry via Physical Electrothermal Modeling

Abstract

In this work, the impact of symmetric and asymmetricelectrodeson the resistive switching (RS) behavior of the nanoscale Y2O3-based memristor is investigated with experiments. Inaddition, the extracted switching parameters are validated with systemicmodeling. Memristor growth is deployed by utilizing a dual ion beamsputtering (DIBS) system, and simulation is carried out in a semiconductorphysics-based tool, i.e., COMSOL Multiphysics with a defined MATLABscript. The performed simulation work is based on the minimum freeenergy of the used materials at an applied certain voltage. The simulatedresults exhibit a stable pinched hysteresis loop in the RS responseseither in symmetric or asymmetric electrode combinations with an efficientON/OFF current ratio and show a close match with the experimentalresults. Moreover, the simulated devices show synaptic plasticityfunctionalities in terms of potentiation and depression processeswith an almost ideal linearity factor for both electrode combinationssimilar to the realistic experimental data. Therefore, the presentwork efficiently depicts the suitability of the electrode materialwith the Y2O3 switching layer to enhance electricalperformance to integrate into the artificial synapse and neuromorphiccomputations.