Recovery of cycling-induced endurance failed HfOx based memristive devices by utilizing oxygen plasma treatment

Abstract

The oxygen ion (O2-) loss effect during resistive switching (RS) cycles will inevitably lead to endurance degradation or even failure in oxide-based memristive devices. In this Letter, we propose an effective way to recover the cycling-induced endurance failed HfOx based memristive devices by utilizing oxygen plasma treatment (OPT). In the as-fabricated Pt/HfOx/Pt devices, a negative SET event is observed after consecutive normal RS cycles and eventually triggers endurance failure. The appearance of the intermediate resistance state at the initial stage of the negative SET cycle indicates a prominent reduction of the migration barrier of O2-, which accounts for the occurrence of negative SET after increasing cycles. Then, we recover the devices from endurance failure by moderate OPT, which can supply the available O2- in RS cycles. More importantly, the first recovered devices after endurance failure can be recovered again through OPT, which better proves the validity of the recovery method. This study could provide an effective approach for understanding and addressing the cycling-induced endurance failure issue in oxide-based memristive devices.