Growth and characterization of sputter-deposited Ga2O3-based memristive devices

In the last few years, there has been significant interest in gallium oxide devices for resistive switching technologies due to its remarkable sensitivity to oxygen. In this study, we present the growth and resistive switching of a ( 201) oriented (75 +/- 3) nm beta-Ga2O3 thin film on a Ru/Al2O3 substrate using magnetron radio frequency sputtering. The observed resistive switching was attributed to the formation and rupture of conductive filaments constituted by oxygen vacancies in the beta-Ga2O3 film as confirmed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The electrical conduction was found to be of Ohmic nature in the low-resistance ON state, while the high-resistance OFF state was governed by the Poole-Frenkel transport mechanism. Exhibiting stable endurance cycles, long retention times, and ON/OFF ratios of up to 10(4), the devices can be considered as promising prototypes for future nonvolatile resistive switching random access memory with respect to both switching performance and device stability.