Impact of vacancy clusters on characteristic resistance change of nonstoichiometric strontium titanate nano-film

In practical applications to bipolar resistance switching (BRS) memory devices with enhanced performance and high-scalability, oxide materials are commonly fabricated to highly nonstoichiometric and nanometer scale films. In this study, we fabricated ultrathin strontium titanate film, which shows two types of BRS behavior. By using micro-beam X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, the changes of core-level spectra depending on the resistance states are spatially resolved. Experimental and calculated results demonstrated that the fundamental switching mechanism in the two types of BRS is originated from the migration of anion and cation vacancies and the formation of insulating vacancy clusters near vicinity of the interface.