On the Mechanism of Resistive Switching in MIM Capacitors – An Approach with In-situ TEM Experiments

Abstract

AbstractIn this contribution an in-situ TEM experiment is suggested to observe the microstructure of a metal/oxide insulator/metal (MIM) capacitor structure during resistive switching due to an applied external voltage or current. The motivation for such an experiment is the fact that there is a large pool on the resistive switching data in the literature, but there is no agreement on the mechanism, which in part is due to missing microstructural observations of the effects. For such an experiment a special TEM sample holder has been developed allowing controlled in-situ application of temperature (RT to 300°C) with a heating stage and of voltage (current) as a part of a 4-terminal resistance measurement set-up. This is combined with a special TEM sample preparation method, the “window”-technique, so that no thinning of the MIM thin film structure is necessary at all (which is an advantage as the oxides are known to be very sensitive to damage introduced by methods such as ion-milling). Special electrode configurations have been designed to allow nearly undisturbed TEM observation of the switching insulator. Identical samples will also be investigated ex-situ in conventional switching experiments to identify the influence of the special TEM environment (high vacuum, irradiation with energetic electrons).