Zinc oxide and indium-gallium-zinc-oxide bi-layer synaptic device with highly linear long-term potentiation and depression characteristics

The electrical properties, resistive switching behavior, and long-term potentiation/depression (LTP/LTD) in a single indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) and bi-layer IGZO/ZnO (ZnO: zinc oxide) memristors were investigated for synapse application. The use of the oxide bi-layer memristors, in particular, improved electrical properties such as stability, memristor reliability, and an increase in synaptic weight states. The set voltage of bi-layer IGZO/ZnO memristors was 0.9 V, and the reset voltage was around − 0.7 V, resulting in a low-operating voltage for neuromorphic systems. The oxygen vacancies in the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis played a role in the modulation of the high-resistance state (HRS) (oxygen-deficient) and the low-resistance state (oxygen-rich) region. The V(RESET) of the bi-layer IGZO/ZnO memristors was lower than that of a single IGZO, which implied that oxygen-vacancy filaments could be easily ruptured due to the higher oxygen vacancy peak HRS layer. The nonlinearity of the LTP and LTD characteristics in a bi-layer IGZO/ZnO memristor was 6.77% and 11.49%, respectively, compared to those of 20.03% and 51.1% in a single IGZO memristor, respectively. Therefore, the extra ZnO layer in the bi-layer memristor with IGZO was potentially significant and essential to achieve a small set voltage and a reset voltage, and the switching behavior to form the conductive path.