On the Origin of Resistive Switching Volatility in TiO2 thin films

Resistive switching (RS) and Resistive Random Access Memories (ReRAMs) that exploit it have attracted huge interests for next generation non volatile memory (NVM) applications, also thought to be able to overcome flash memories limitations when arranged in crossbar arrays. A cornerstone of their potential success is that the RS between two different resistive states, usually High (HRS, High resistive state) and Low(LRS, Low Resistive State) is an intrinsic non-volatile phenomenon with the two states thermodynamically stable. Titanium Dioxide is one of the most common materials known to show non-volatile RS. In this paper we report the first observed volatile resistive switching (VRS) in a Titanium Dioxide thin film. The aim of this paper is to study and understand the VRS phenomenon to give an extensive picture of its underlying Physics. A possible exploitation of the VRS could be in access devices in ReRAM crossbar arrays.