Origin of variation in switching voltages in threshold-switching phenomena of VO2 thin films

Abstract

We investigated the origin of the variation in switching voltages in threshold-switching of VO2 thin films. When a triangular-waveform voltage signal was applied, the current changed abruptly at two switching voltages, i.e., VON (insulator-to-metal) and VOFF (metal-to-insulator). VON and VOFF were measured by changing the period of the voltage signal, the temperature of the environment, and the load resistance. We observed that either VON or V OFF varied significantly and had different dependences with respect to the external parameters. Based on the mechanism of the metal-insulator transition induced by Joule heating, numerical simulations were performed, which quantitatively reproduced all of the experimental results. From the simulation analysis, the variation in the switching voltages for threshold-switching was determined to be thermal in origin. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.