Temperature Dependence of Resistance of Conductive Filament Formed by Dielectric Breakdown

An investigation of current--voltage ($I$--$V$) characteristics and the temperature dependence of resistance in a resistive switching (RS) memory with a Cu/SiO 2 /Au device was performed. Moreover, conductive spots were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Both unipolar and bipolar operation modes were obtained. From the temperature dependence of resistance, it is suggested that the conduction mechanism of the low resistance state (LRS) is metallic conduction and that of the high resistance state (HRS) is variable-range hopping (VRH) conduction. The results of observing the device support this suggestion. We propose the switching mechanism in the Cu/SiO 2 /Au device from these results.