HfAlO-based ferroelectric memristors for artificial synaptic plasticity

Abstract

Memristors have received much attention for their ability to achieve multi-level storage and synaptic learning. However, the main factor that hinders the application of memristors to simulate neural synapses is the instability of the formation and breakage of conductive filaments inside traditional memristors, which makes it difficult to simulate the function of biological synapses in practice. However, the resistance change of ferroelectric memristors relies on the polarization inversion of the ferroelectric thin film, thus avoiding the above problem. In this study, a Pd/HfAlO/LSMO/STO/Si ferroelectric memristor is proposed, which can achieve resistive switching properties through the combined action of ferroelectricity and oxygen vacancies. The I−V curves show that the device has good stability and uniformity. In addition, the effect of pulse sequence modulation on the conductance was investigated, and the biological synaptic function and learning behavior were simulated successfully. The results of the above studies provide a basis for the development of ferroelectric memristors with neurosynaptic-like behaviors.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

memristor / ferroelectric domain polarization / resistance regulation / artificial synapse

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Declarations

The authors declare that they have no competing interests and there are no conflict of interest.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Electronic Supplementary Material

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-023-1310-6 and https://journal.hep.com.cn/fop/EN/10.1007/s11467-023-1310-6. See the Electronic Supplementary Material for the change of device relaxation time with the number of pulses. The relaxation time increases as the number of stimulation pulses increases. The fabricated memristor is confirmed to have the feasibility of transitioning from STP (short-term plasticity, STP) to LTP. Supplementary material also demonstrates the PFM amplitude mapping and P−V loop of HfAlO, and the effect of negative voltage pulses on conductance of the device. In addition, the LRS mechanism of the Pd/HfAlO/LSMO/STO/Si structure memristor is further studied in the supplementary material.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (No. F2021201009), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62104058), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (No. F2021201022), the Science and Technology Project of Hebei Education Department (No. QN2020178), the Foundation of President of Hebei University (No. XZJJ201910), and Advanced Talents Incubation Program of the Hebei University (No. 521000981362).

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