Failure mechanism investigation and endurance improvement in Te-rich Ge–Te based ovonic threshold switching selectors

Abstract

The endurance of ovonic threshold switching (OTS) selectors is a key element for memory application. However, multi-element system for OTS in recent studies will induce element or phase segregation and lead to device failure. Since pure Te based device characterizes relatively high off current, in this work, we studied a Te-rich Ge–Te based OTS selector. We first conducted a failure analysis on Ge–Te based OTS selector. Through first-principles calculations, we found that a relatively larger Ge concentration in the Ge–Te system may lead to a worse device endurance after continuous operation due to the migration of Ge atoms. Experiments further proved that device endurance can be improved more than two orders of magnitude through decreasing Ge concentration and the element segregation is greatly weakened by the composition close to elemental. Finally, a significantly improved endurance of 2 × 1010 was realized in Ge10Te90 based OTS selectors. In the meantime, the Ge10Te90 based OTS selectors show good switching performance and potential for use in memory applications.