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Neuromorphic engineering offers a promising route toward intelligent and low power computing systems that may find applications in artificial intelligence and the Internet. Construction of neuromorphic systems, however, requires scalable nanodevices that could implement the key functionalities of biological synapses. Here, we demonstrate an artificial synaptic device consisting of a Ti/yttria-stabilized-zirconia (ZrO2:Y)/Pt memristive structure, where the loss microstructure, high oxygen vacancy concentration, and resultant high ionic conductivity in ZrO2:Y facilitate the oxygen vacancy migration and filament evolution in the devices, leading to a bipolar artificial synapse with low forming and operation voltages. As the thickness of ZrO2:Y film increases, a transition from bipolar to unipolar resistive switching was observed, which can be ascribed to the competing vertical and radial ion transport dynamics. The emergence of unipolar switching has in turn allowed the device to exhibit metaplasticity, a history dependent plasticity that is important for memory and learning functions. This work thus demonstrates on-demand manipulation of ionic transport properties for building synaptic elements with rich functionalities.

In this paper, we propose a TaOx resistive switching random access memory (RRAM) device with operation-polarity-dependent self-selection effect by introducing highly doped silicon (Si) electrode, which is promising for large-scale integration. It is observed that with highly doped Si as the bottom electrode (BE), the RRAM devices show non-linear (>103) I-V characteristic during negative Forming/Set operation and linear behavior during positive Forming/Set operation. The underling mechanisms for the linear and non-linear behaviors at low resistance states of the proposed device are extensively investigated by varying operation modes, different metal electrodes, and Si doping type. Experimental data and theoretical analysis demonstrate that the operation-polarity-dependent self-selection effect in our devices originates from the Schottky barrier between the TaOx layer and the interfacial SiOx formed by reaction between highly doped Si BE and immigrated oxygen ions in the conductive filament area.

TaOx-based resistive random access memory (RRAM) attracts considerable attention for the development of next generation nonvolatile memories. However, read current noise in RRAM is one of the critical concerns for storage application, and its microscopic origin is still under debate. In this work, the read current noise in TaOx-based RRAM was studied thoroughly. Based on a noise power spectral density analysis at room temperature and at ultra-low temperature of 25 K, discrete random telegraph noise (RTN) and continuous average current fluctuation (ACF) are identified and decoupled from the total read current noise in TaOx RRAM devices. A statistical comparison of noise amplitude further reveals that ACF depends strongly on the temperature, whereas RTN is independent of the temperature. Measurement results combined with conduction mechanism analysis show that RTN in TaOx RRAM devices arises from electron trapping/detrapping process in the hopping conduction, and ACF is originated from the thermal activatio...