Mechanisms and Control of Resistive Switching in Dielectrics

所谓的“电阻开关”设备是基于纳米结构的介电材料，其中的电阻可以变化和记忆。可以说，在未来20年，这些设备将在信息存储领域引发一系列颠覆性的技术。这些非易失性电阻开关器件可能具有高速、高密度、长保持时间和高耐用性，这将极大地提高非易失性存储器的性能，并彻底改变计算机架构。本研究旨在了解具有可编程电阻的氧化介质的性能-工艺-结构关系。建模、合成和表征的结合将用于促进对氧化物材料缺陷及其控制的理解。本研究的目的是阐明缺陷形成和迁移的性质和机制，并探索控制和提高其电学性能的方法，以用于电阻开关应用。全球存储设备市场总额超过570亿美元，预计到2015年将增长到990亿美元。在这个市场中，许多现有的存储技术（DRAM， SRAM和NAND Flash）都有固有的扩展问题，需要克服下一代。对替代解决方案的探索正在获得动力，而另一个候选方案是利用电阻开关机制的电阻式RAM。英国电子系统社区雇佣了超过85万人，约占英国劳动力的3%。大约有一半的就业机会是在3万家企业中发现的，这些企业的业务显然是提供电子系统及其所需的技术和能力。其余的则来自占据航空航天、国防、医疗、零售、媒体和教育等市场领域的企业。该项目的潜在影响将是开发一种新的制造工艺技术，这将在英国的这些部门得到应用。如果实现了项目提出的目标，在新材料、化学、产品和工艺方面的影响将是显著的。

So-called "resistive-switching" devices are based on nanostructured dielectric materials, in which the resistance can be varied and memorised. Arguably these devices will lead to a range of disruptive technologies in the field of infromation storage over the next 20 years. Potentially these non-volatile resistive-switching devices can have potentially high speeds, high densities, long retention times and high endurance which will drastically enhance the performance of non-volatile memories and also revolutionise the computer architectures. This research sets out to understand the property - process - structure relationships of oxide dielectrics with programmable resistance. A combination of modelling, synthesis and characterisation will be used to advance the understanding of defects in oxide materials and their control. The aims of the proposed research are to elucidate the nature and mechanisms of the formation and migration of the defects and to explore ways to control and enhance their electrical properties for resistive-switching applications. The global market for memory devices amounts to more than $57 billion and has been projected to grow to $99 billion by 2015. Within this market, a number of existing memory technologies, (DRAM, SRAM, and NAND Flash) have inherent scaling issues to overcome beyond the next generation. The search for alternative solutions is gaining momentum and an alternative candidate is Resistive RAM which exploits the resistive-switching mechanism. The UK Electronic Systems Community employs more than 850,000 people, which constitutes approximately 3% of the UK workforce. Approximately half of this employment is found in the 30,000 enterprises whose business is overtly the provision of Electronic Systems and the technologies and capabilities they need. The rest are within businesses that occupy market sectors spanning aerospace, defence, healthcare, retail, media and education. The potential impact of this project will be the development of a new manufacturing process technology, which will have applications across these sectors in the UK. The impact in terms of new materials, chemistry, products and processes will be significant if the projeproposed objectives are realised.