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Orthorhombic Bi2SiO5 thin films were fabricated on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by incorporating a NiO thin layer between Bi2SiO5 and bottom electrode. Compared with those bare Pt/Bi2SiO5/Pt devices, a remarkably improved uniformity of resistive switching parameters such as electroforming voltages, reset voltages, and a resistance ratio of low/high states was demonstrated in the Bi2SiO5 devices with an embedded NiO layer. This improvement was attributed to the formation of the partial conductive filaments resulted from sufficient oxygen vacancies at the interface. Our results provide a method for the optimization of the operation voltage control toward forefront applications in nonvolatile memory.

Structure, dielectric, ferroelectric, fatigue, and photoluminescent properties of Bi3.86−kSm0.14LakTi3O12 (BSLT) thin films synthesized by sol–gel method were investigated. The XRD analysis indicated that the BSLT thin films formed single phase orthorhombic structure, and orthorhombic distortion was found to increase with increasing lanthanum doping content. Raman spectra revealed that BSLT thin films have significantly structure distorted because of La3+ doping, which is consistent with XRD results. Increasing La substitution results in improvement in dielectric and ferroelectric properties of BSLT thin films due to distorted structure and defects reduction. The films show almost fatigue-free ferroelectric polarization behavior at room temperature. Besides, the BSLT thin films show orange-red color emission at 604 nm and long florescence lifetime (about 0.75 ms). This study indicates that the thin films with an appropriate doping concentration of Sm3+, La3+ ions may have potential applications in multifunctional optoelectronic devices.

Pr3+-doped Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (Pr-NBT) thin films with different preferred orientations including random, (100), and (110) orientations were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by a chemical solution deposition method combining with a rapid thermal annealing. Effects of the crystallographic orientation on the ferroelectric and dielectric properties of Pr-NBT thin films were investigated. XRD patterns revealed that the preferential orientation degrees of (100)- and (110)-oriented Pr-NBT thin films were 97% and 69%, respectively. The (100)-oriented Pr-NBT thin film has a higher dielectric constant of 1035 compared to the (110)- and randomly oriented ones. Furthermore, a large remnant polarization (2Pr = 31 µC/cm2) was obtained from the highly (100)-oriented Pr-NBT thin film, which is 1.55 times larger than that of the randomly oriented film. The quantitative relationship in dielectric constants between the (100)-, (110)-oriented, and randomly oriented Pr-NBT thin films was calculated using the dipole azimuth model. The calculated result was consistent with experimental measurements. The optimal dielectric tunable property (tunability = 40.8%, FoM = 10.2) is obtained from (100)-oriented films. The highly (100)-oriented Pr-NBT lead-free thin film is promising for use in integrated microelectronic devices.

Cerium oxide (CeO2−x) film was deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrate by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Resistive switching characteristics of these ceria films have been improved by increasing oxygen content during deposition process. Endurance and statistical analyses indicate that the operating stability of CeO2−x-based memory is highly dependent on the oxygen content. Results indicate that CeO2−x film-based RRAM devices exhibit optimum performance when fabricated at an argon/oxygen ratio of 6:24. An increase in the oxygen content introduced during CeO2−x film deposition not only stabilizes the conventional bipolar RS but also improves excellent switching uniformity such as large ON/OFF ratio (102), excellent switching device-to-device uniformity and good sweep endurance over ~ 500 repeated RS cycles. Conduction in the low-resistance state (LRS) as well as in the low bias field region in the high-resistance state (HRS) is found to be Ohmic and thus supports the conductive filament (CF) theory. In the high voltage region of HRS, space charge limited conduction (SCLC) and Schottky emission are found to be the dominant conduction mechanisms. A feasible filamentary RS mechanism based on the movement of oxygen ions/vacancies under the bias voltage has been discussed.

Highly uniform resistive switching performance has been demonstrated in amorphous Bi2O3 thin films. The thin films were prepared by using a low-temperature photochemical solution deposition method simply combining chemical solution deposition and ultraviolet irradiation treatment. The Pt/Bi2O3/Pt memory devices exhibit reproducible resistive switching performance, uniform switching voltage, concentralized distribution of high and low resistance states, and good endurance. The conduction mechanisms of the thin films were discussed on the basis of analysis of current–voltage characteristics. The excellent resistive switching performance of the amorphous Bi2O3 thin films can be attributed to the reduction of –OH groups and the formation of enhanced Bi–O bonding under UV irradiation treatment, based on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and field-emission scanning electron microscopy analysis. Our study suggests that amorphous Bi2O3 thin films have potential applications in resistive memory, and the UV irradiation treatment is an effective method for low-temperature fabrication of some amorphous oxide thin films with good resistive switching properties, especially for flexible electronic devices.

Eu-doped Ba1−xSrxTiO3 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) thin films with Eu-doping content of 1 mol% have been prepared on fused silica substrates by a chemical solution deposition method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical and photoluminescence measurements. XRD analysis showed that the films were well crystallized with a pure perovskite structure in the annealing temperature range from 650 to 750 °C. AFM observation indicated that the films were dense and smooth. The band-gap energies of the thin films were also investigated. The more the Sr content in the thin films, the narrower the energy gap of the thin films. Photoluminescence spectra of the thin films showed two prominent transitions of Eu3+ ions at 594 nm (5D0 → 7F1) and 618 nm (5D0 → 7F2) upon excitation at 395 nm (7F0 → 5L6). The observed changes of luminescence spectra by the decrease of the intensity ratio R, which was defined as the ratio of the integrated emission intensity of 5D0 → 7F2 transition to that of 5D0 → 7F1 transition, were associated with the increase of the inversion symmetry of Eu3+ sites when Sr content increased. Lifetime study of photoluminescence indicated that the average lifetime of the thin films was approximately 0.7 ms.

Bi3.95Er0.05Ti3O12 (BErT) thin films were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si and indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates at room temperature by pulsed laser deposition. These thin films were amorphous with uniform thickness. Excellent dielectric characteristics have been confirmed. The amorphous BErT thin films deposited on the Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si and ITO-coated glass substrates exhibited almost the same dielectric constant of 52 with a low dielectric loss of less than 0.02 at 1 kHz. Meanwhile, the dielectric properties of the thin films had an excellent bias voltage stability and thermal stability. The amorphous BErT thin films might have potential applications in microelectronic and optoelectronic devices.

Temperature dependence of dielectric properties of (1−x)Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (x=0.15, 0.30, and 0.50) (BZT–xBCT) thin films prepared by a sol–gel method has been investigated. The results show that there is a broad dielectric maximum near T m and the diffuse parameter γ is close to 2, indicating a nearly complete diffuse phase transition in BZT–xBCT thin films. The dielectric relaxor behaviors of the thin films well follow Vogel–Fulcher relation. The thin films show a high dielectric tunability up to 65 %, with a small variation in the temperature range from 248.15 to 373.15 K. This study indicates that the thin films, especially for x=0.50, are promising candidates for tunable device applications with good temperature stability.

Bi4-xEuxTi3O12 (BEuT) ferroelectric thin films were prepared on fused silica substrates by using chemical solution deposition technique. The attained samples had a polycrystalline bismuth-layered perovskite structure, and their optical properties were composition dependent. The thin film samples had good optical transmittance above 500 nm wavelength. A blue shift of the optical absorption edge was observed in the BEuT thin films with increasing Eu3+ concentration. The optical band gaps of BEuT thin films were estimated to be about 3.57, 3.60, 3.61, 3.63, and 3.69 eV for the samples with x = 0.25, 0.40, 0.55, 0.70, and 0.85, respectively. Photoluminescence measurements showed that two emission peaks of BEuT thin films originated from two transitions of 5 D 0 → 7 F 1 (594 nm) and 5 D 0 → 7 F 2 (617 nm) had maximum intensities when Eu3+ concentration was x = 0.40. The relatively high quenching concentration of Eu3+ content was thought to be related to the layered structure of BEuT thin films. These results suggested that multifunctional BEuT thin film materials could have promising applications in optoelectronic devices.

Electrically induced unipolar resistance switching effects of Mg0.6Zn0.4O thin films with two top Pt electrodes (MZO-T) and top and bottom Pt electrodes (MZO-B) were demonstrated and compared for nonvolatile memory applications. The obtained resistance ratios of high-resistance states (HRS) to low-resistance states (LRS) for MZO-B and MZO-T devices were above seven and four orders of magnitude, respectively, and exhibited a slight degradation with voltage. For both the devices, the conduction mechanisms were dominated by ohmic conduction in LRS and trap-controlled space charge limited current in HRS. Furthermore, a filamentary model was applied to explain the switching behaviors for both the devices considering the asymmetric interface defects and film thickness. The results also suggest that resistance switching behaviors can be regulated by interface defect engineering.

Highly c-axis oriented \( {\text{M}}{{\text{g}}_{\text{x}}}{\text{Z}}{{\text{n}}_{{1 - {\text{x}}}}}{\text{O}}\left( {x = 0 \sim 0.2} \right) \) thin films with pure hexagonal phase were prepared on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates by chemical solution deposition method, and their structure, photoluminescence, and lattice vibrational properties were studied. For the thin films with Mg contents ranging 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.20, the room-temperature near-band-edge emission exhibited blueshift up to about 0.35 eV, indicating that the band-gaps of thin films could be tailored by Mg incorporation, meanwhile, the green emission of the thin films enhanced with increasing Mg content. Raman spectra analysis indicated that the decreasing high frequency E2 Raman modes showed composition-dependent asymmetrically broadening. The difference of electronegativity between Mg2+ for Zn2+ as well as the potential fluctuation were discussed. Furthermore, longtitudial optical modes exhibited one-mode behavior with observed ~25.8 cm−1 blueshift. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements clearly confirmed the Mg incorporation.

A heterojunction structure of p-NiO/n-Mg0.6Zn0.4O with an aim to tuning or improving the resistive switching properties was fabricated on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates by the sol-gel spin-coating technique. The Pt/NiO/Mg0.6Zn0.4O/Pt heterojunction thin-film device shows excellent resistive switching properties, such as a reduced threshold current of 1 μA for device initiation, a small dispersion of reset voltage ranging from 0.54 to 0.62 V, long retention time and a high resistance ratio of high-resistance state to low-resistance state about six orders of magnitude. These results indicate that the resistive switching properties can be greatly improved by constructing the p-NiO/n-Mg0.6Zn0.4O heterojunction for nonvolatile memory applications. The physical mechanism responsible for colossal resistive switching properties of the heterojunction was analyzed based on interfacial defect effect and formation and rapture of conductive filaments.

We report on reversible bipolar resistance switching effects in multiferroic BiFeO3 thin films without electroforming. The BiFeO3 thin films with (110) preferential orientation were prepared on LaNiO3-electrodized Si substrates with a Pt/BiFeO3/LaNiO3 device configuration. The resistance ratio of high resistance state (HRS) to low resistance state (LRS) of the devices was as high as three orders of magnitude. The dominant conduction mechanisms of LRS and HRS were dominated by ohmic behavior and trap-controlled space charge limited current, respectively. The resistance switching mechanism of the devices was discussed using a modified Schottky-like barrier model taking into account the movement of oxygen vacancies.

Pb(Zr0.25Ti0.75)O3 (PZT25) thin films were prepared on LaNiO3-coated thermally oxidized silicon substrates by chemical solution deposition method, where LaNiO3 electrodes were also prepared by a chemical solution deposition technique. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the PZT25 thin films were 570 and 0.057, respectively. The remanent polarization and coercive field were 20.11 μC/cm2 and 60.7 kV/cm, respectively. The PZT25 thin films on LaNiO3-coated thermally oxidized silicon substrates showed improved fatigue characteristics compared with their counterparts on plantium-coated silicon substrates.

Three dimensional Z2 Topological insulator (TI) is an unconventional phase of quantum matter possessing insulating bulk state as well as time-reversal symmetry-protected Dirac-like surface state, which is demonstrated by extensive experiments based on surface sensitive detection techniques. This intriguing gapless surface state is theoretically predicted to exhibit many exotic phenomena when interacting with light and some of them have been observed. Herein, we report the first experimental observation of novel polarization dependent photocurrent of photodetectors based on the TI Bi2Te3 film under irradiation of linearly polarized light. This photocurrent is linearly dependent on both the light intensity and the applied bias voltage. To pursue the physical origin of the polarization dependent photocurrent, we establish the basic TI surface state model to treat the light irradiation as a perturbation and we adopt the Boltzmann equation to calculate the photocurrent. It turns out that the theoretical results are in nice qualitative agreement with the experiment. These findings show that the polycrystalline TI Bi2Te3 film working as a multifunctional photodetector can not only detect the light intensity, but also measure the polarization state of the incident light, which is remarkably different from conventional photodetectors that usually only detect the light intensity.

(Bi,La)4Ti3O12 (BLT) thin films with various Bi2O3 template layers were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by a chemical solution deposition method. Both of the BLT films with a thin Bi2O3 template layer and those without a Bi2O3 layer had a highly c-axis oriented growth, while both of the BLT films with a thin Bi2O3 bottom layer and those with a Bi2O3 intermediate layer were highly c-axis oriented. It was found that the use of Bi2O3 template layers improved significantly the ferroelectric properties of BLT thin films. In addition, the thin films with a thin Bi2O3 template layer showed good dielectric properties. All the capacitors with Bi2O3 template layers showed high polarization fatigue resistance and good retention properties.

Demonstration of a tunable conductivity of the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces by field effect drew significant attention to the development oxide-based electronics. Increase in the gate capacitance of LaAlO3/SrTiO3-based field-effect transistor is particularly important to the conductivity modulation and the development of logic device. Here, we demonstrate that annihilation of quantum capacitance and colossal capacitance enhancement (about 1000%) in the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures by DC gate voltage at room temperature, which we attribute to the motion of oxygen vacancies through the LaAlO3 layer thickness. The capacitor devices would provide a platform for the further development and application of metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor devices.