Role of oxygen vacancies in cr-doped SrTiO₃ for resistance-change memory

A high density of oxygen vacancies has been found in an experiment to determine the path of electrical conduction in Cr-doped SrTiO3 memory cells. The Cr acts as a seed for the localization of oxygen vacancies, leading to a statistically homogeneous distribution of charge carriers within the path. This warrants a controllable doping profile and improved device scaling down to the nanometer scale. The combination of laterally resolved micro-X-ray absorption spectroscopy and thermal imaging concludes that the resistance switching in Cr-doped SrTiO3 originates from an oxygen-vacancy drift to/from the electrode that was used as anode during the conditioning process. The experiments shows that this oxygen vacancy concept is crucial for the entire class of transition-metal-oxide-based bipolar resistance-change memory.