Resistive switching of polycrystalline, multiferroic YMnO₃ thin films

Resistive switching (RS) phenomena have been widely investigated in the field of materials science, physics, and electrical engineering in the past decade. Recently, multiferroics have been considered as promising candidates for memristive switches. Specific properties of multiferroics might bring additional and/or new functionalities into the memristive switches. This work investigates the RS properties of multiferroic YMnO₃ thin films reported as a unipolar resistive switches. YMnO₃ was grown at 400°C on Pt/Ti/SiO₂/Si substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and crystallized by flash lamp annealing (FLA). Film thickness and the concentration of point defects were controlled during the PLD process. Transport and Rs properties of Au/YMnO₃/Pt/Ti/SiO₂ structures were determined by two-point probe measurements in a top-bottom configuration. Results imply that the filamentary, unipolar RS in YMnO₃ originates from the electro-redox reactions induced by the Joule heating.