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- Electroforming process in metal-oxide-polymer resistive switching memoriesPublication . Chen, Q.; Gomes, Henrique L.; Kiazadeh, Asal; Rocha, Paulo R. F.; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.Electroforming of an Al/Al2O3/polymer/Al esistive switching diode is reported. Electroforming is a dielectric soft-breakdown mechanism leading to hysteretic current–voltage characteristics and non–volatile memory behavior. Electron trapping occurs at early stages of electroforming. Trapping is physically located at the oxide/polymer interface. The detrapping kinetics is faster under reverse bias and for thicker oxides layers. Thermally detrapping experiments give a trap depth of 0.65 eV and a density of 5x1017 /cm2. It is proposed that the trapped electrons induce a dipole layer across the oxide. The associated electric field triggers breakdown and ultimately dictate the overall memory characteristics.
- The role of internal structure in the anomalous switching dynamics of metal-oxide/polymer resistive random access memoriesPublication . Rocha, Paulo R. F.; Kiazadeh, Asal; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.; Verbakel, F.; Taylor, D. M.; Gomes, Henrique L.The dynamic response of a non-volatile, bistable resistive memory fabricated in the form of Al2O3/polymer diodes has been probed in both the off- and on-state using triangular and step voltage profiles. The results provide insight into the wide spread in switching times reported in the literature and explain an apparently anomalous behaviour of the on-state, namely the disappearance of the negative differential resistance region at high voltage scan rates which is commonly attributed to a “dead time” phenomenon. The off-state response follows closely the predictions based on a classical, two-layer capacitor description of the device. As voltage scan rates increase, the model predicts that the fraction of the applied voltage, Vox , appearing across the oxide decreases. Device responses to step voltages in both the off- and on-state show that switching events are characterized by a delay time. Coupling such delays to the lower values of Vox attained during fast scan rates, the anomalous observation in the on-state that, device currents decrease with increasing voltage scan rate, is readily explained. Assuming that a critical current is required to turn off a conducting channel in the oxide, a tentative model is suggested to explain the shift in the onset of negative differential resistance to lower voltages as the voltage scan rate increases. The findings also suggest that the fundamental limitations on the speed of operation of a bilayer resistive memory are the time- and voltage-dependences of the switch-on mechanism and not the switch-off process.
- Dynamics of charge carrier trapping in NO2 sensors based on ZnO field-effect transistorsPublication . Andringa, Anne-Marije; Vlietstra, N.; Smits, E. C. P.; Spijkman, Mark-Jan; Gomes, Henrique L.; Klootwijk, J. H.; Blom, P. W. M.; De Leeuw, Dago M.Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) detection with ZnO field-effect transistors is based on charge carrier trapping. Here we investigate the dynamics of charge trapping and recovery as a function of temperature by monitoring the threshold voltage shift. The threshold voltage shifts follow a stretched-exponential time dependence with thermally activated relaxation times. We find an activation energy of 0.1 eV for trapping and 1.2 eV for detrapping. The attempt-to-escape frequency and characteristic temperature have been determined as 1 Hz and 960 K for charge trapping and 1011 Hz and 750 K for recovery, respectively. Thermally stimulated current measurements confirm the presence of trapped charge carriers with a trap depth of around 1 eV. The obtained functional dependence is used as input for an analytical model that predicts the sensor’s temporal behavior. The model is experimentally verified and a real-time sensor has been developed. The perfect agreement between predicted and measured sensor response validates the methodology developed. The analytical description can be used to optimize the driving protocol. By adjusting the operating temperature and the duration of charging and resetting, the response time can be optimized and the sensitivity can be maximized for the desired partial NO2 pressure window.
- Trapping of electrons in metal oxide-polymer memory diodes in the initial stage of electroformingPublication . Bory, Benjamin F.; Meskers, S. C. J.; Janssen, R. A. J.; Gomes, Henrique L.; De Leeuw, Dago M.Metal oxide-polymer diodes require electroforming before they act as nonvolatile resistive switching memory diodes. Here we investigate the early stages of the electroforming process in Al/Al2O3 /polyspirofluorene /Ba/Al diodes using quasistatic capacitance-voltage measurements. In the initial stage, electrons are injected into the polymer and then deeply trapped near the polyspirofluorene-Al2O3 interface. For bias voltages below 6 V, the number of trapped electrons is found to be CoxideV/q with Coxide as the geometrical capacitance of the oxide layer. This implies a density of traps for the electrons at the polymer-metal oxide interface larger than 31017 m−2.
- Non-volatile memory device using a polymer modified nanocrystalPublication . Kiazadeh, Asal; Gomes, Henrique L.; Costa, Ana M. Rosa da; Moreira, José; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.Thin-film planar structures using AgCl nanocrystals embedded in a polymer blend; exhibit reliable and reproducible switching between different non-volatile conductance states. It is shown that resistive switching in these systems cannot be related with migration diffusion or aggregation of metals to form metallic filaments. This is supported by temperature-dependent measurement showing that the current in the high conductance state is thermal activated (0.6 eV).
- Determining carrier mobility with a metal–insulator–semiconductor structurePublication . Stallinga, Peter; Benvenho, A. R. V.; Smits, E. C. P.; Mathijssen, S. G. J.; Cölle, M.; Gomes, Henrique L.; De Leeuw, Dago M.The electron and hole mobility of nickel-bis(dithiolene) (NiDT) are determined in a metal– insulator–semiconductor (MIS)structure using admittance spectroscopy. The relaxation times found in the admittance spectra are attributed to the diffusion time of carriers to reach the insulator interface and via Einstein’s relation this yields the mobility values. In this way, an electron mobility of 1:9 104 cm2=Vs and a hole mobility of 3:9 106 cm2=Vs were found. It is argued that the low mobility is caused by an amphoteric mid-gap trap level. The activation energy for electrons and holes from these traps is found to be 0.46 eV and 0.40 eV, respectively.
- Opto-electronic characterization of electron traps upon forming polymer oxide memory diodesPublication . Chen, Q.; Bory, Benjamin F.; Kiazadeh, Asal; Rocha, Paulo R. F.; Gomes, Henrique L.; Verbakel, F.; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.Metal-insulator-polymer diodes where the insulator is a thin oxide (Al2O3) layer are electroformed by applying a high bias. The initial stage is reversible and involves trapping of electrons near the oxide/polymer interface. The rate of charge trapping is limited by electron transport through the polymer. Detrapping of charge stored can be accomplished by illuminating with light under short-circuit conditions. The amount of stored charge is determined from the optically induced discharging current transient as a function of applied voltage and oxide thickness. When the charge density exceeds 8 1017/m2, an irreversible soft breakdown transition occurs to a non-volatile memory diode.
- Intrinsic and extrinsic resistive switching in a planar diode based on silver oxide nanoparticlesPublication . Kiazadeh, Asal; Gomes, Henrique L.; Rosa da Costa, Ana; Moreira, José; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.Resistive switching is investigated in thin-film planar diodes using silver oxide nanoparticles capped in a polymer. The conduction channel is directly exposed to the ambient atmosphere. Two types of switching are observed. In air, the hysteresis loop in the current–voltage characteristics is S-shaped. The high conductance state is volatile and unreliable. The switching is mediated by moisture and electrochemistry. In vacuum, the hysteresis loops are symmetric, N-shaped and exhibit a negative differential resistance region. The conductance states are non-volatile with good data retention, programming cycling endurance and large current modulation ratio. The switching is attributed to electroforming of silver oxide clusters.
- Low frequency electric current noise in glioma cell populationsPublication . Rocha, P. R. F.; Schlett, P.; Schneider, L.; Dröge, M.; Mailänder, V.; Gomes, Henrique L.; Blom, P. W. M.; De Leeuw, Dago M.Measuring the electrical activity of large and defined populations of cells is currently a major technical challenge to electrophysiology, especially in the picoampere-range. For this purpose, we developed and applied a bidirectional transducer based on a chip with interdigitated gold electrodes to record the electrical response of cultured glioma cells. Recent research determined that also non-neural brain glia cells are electrically active and excitable. Their transformed counterparts, e.g. glioma cells, were suggested to partially retain these electric features. Such electrophysiological studies however are usually performed on individual cells and are limited in their predictive power for the overall electrical activity of the multicellular tumour bulk. Our extremely low-noise measuring system allowed us to detect not only prominent electrical bursts of neuronal cells but also minute, yet constantly occurring and functional, membrane capacitive current oscillations across large populations of C6 glioma cells, which we termed electric current noise. At the same time, tumour cells of non-brain origin (HeLa) proved to be electrically quiescent in comparison. Finally, we determined that the glioma cell activity is primarily caused by the opening of voltage-gated Na+ and K+ ion channels and can be efficiently abolished using specific pharmacological inhibitors. Thus, we offer here a unique approach for studying electrophysiological properties of large cancer cell populations as an in vitro reference for tumour bulks in vivo.
- Anomalous temperature dependence of the current in a metal-oxide-polymer resistive switching diodePublication . Gomes, Henrique L.; Rocha, Paulo R. F.; Kiazadeh, Asal; De Leeuw, Dago M.; Meskers, S. C. J.Metal-oxide polymer diodes exhibit non-volatile resistive switching. The current–voltage characteristics have been studied as a function of temperature. The low-conductance state follows a thermally activated behaviour. The high-conductance state shows a multistep-like behaviour and below 300K an enormous positive temperature coefficient. This anomalous behaviour contradicts the widely held view that switching is due to filaments that are formed reversibly by the diffusion of metal atoms. Instead, these findings together with small-signal impedance measurements indicate that creation and annihilation of filaments is controlled by filling of shallow traps localized in the oxide or at the oxide/polymer interface.