Effect of interlayer on resistive switching properties of SnO2-based memristor for synaptic application

Memristor device opens a new pathway for artificial synapses in the neuromorphic system. In this work, we demonstrate the enhanced memristive and synaptic charactersitcs in SnO2-based memristor device with a thin amorphous zinc fin oxide (alpha-ZTO) film and TiON interlayer that is confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. A more linear and symmetric long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) with lower power consumption are achieved through resistance change induced by repetitive pulse inputs in the double n-type SnO2/ZTO semiconductor device. Moreover, the transition from short-term memory (STM) to long-term memory (LTM) under repetitive identical pulse inputs is demonstrated. The oxygen vacancy-based switching mechanism model and energy band diagram is proposed for W/SnO2/ZTO/TiN memristor device. Experimental results show that W/SnO2/ZTO/TiN memristor as a artificial synapses could be of great benefit for hardware neuromorphic computing.