Abstract: As artificial intelligence and big data become increasingly prevalent, resistive random-access memory (RRAM) has become one of the most promising alternatives for storing massive amounts of data. In this study, we employed high-quality crystalline TiN/Al₂O₃/BaTiO₃/Pt RRAM with an optimized thin Al₂O₃ interlayer around 12 nm thick prepared using atomic layer deposition since the thickness of the interlayer affects the memory window size. After insertion of the Al₂O₃ interlayer, the novel RRAM exhibited outstanding uniform resistive switching voltage and the ON/OFF memory window drastically increased from 10 to 10³ without any discernible decline in performance. Moreover, the low-resistance state and high-resistance state operating current values decreased by almost one order and three orders of magnitude, respectively, thereby decreasing the power consumption for the RESET and SET processes by more than three and almost one order of magnitude, respectively. The device also exhibits multilevel resistive switching behavior when varying the applied voltage. Finally, we also developed a 6 × 6 crossbar array which demonstrated consistent and reliable resistive switching behavior with minimal variation. Hence, our approach holds great promise for producing state-of-the-art non-volatile resistive switching devices.

Key words: Resistive random-access memory, Resistive switching, Atomic layer deposition, Al₂O₃ interlayer