Electric-field-controllable nonvolatile multilevel resistance switching of Bi0.93Sb0.07/PMN-0.29PT(111) heterostructures.

Electric-field switchable multilevel nonvolatile resistance states are achieved at room temperature in Bi0.93Sb0.07/0.71Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.29PbTiO3(111) (PMN-0.29PT) heterostructures. During the initial poling of the PMN-0.29PT, the variation of the resistance of the Bi0.93Sb0.07 film with the electric field tracks the variation of the electric-field-induced in-plane strain of the PMN-0.29PT effectively, revealing that the resistance switching is dominated by the ferroelectric-domain-switching-induced lattice strain but not the domain-switching-induced polarization charges. A relative resistance change ΔR/R ∼ 7% at 300 K and up to ∼10% at 180 K were achieved near the coercive field EC of the PMN-0.29PT(111) substrate. At least five stable resistance states with good endurance properties could be obtained at room temperature by precisely controlling the electric-field pulse sequence as a result of the nonvolatile remnant strain transferring from the PMN-0.29PT to the film, providing a simple and energy efficient way to construct multistate resistive memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]