A cold-electrode metal–oxide resistive random access memory

To reduce the leakage and power consumption of metal–oxide resistive random access memory (RRAM), we propose and fabricate a cold-electrode (CE) RRAM (CE-RRAM) by extending the mechanism of cold-source FETs. First-principles calculations show that the n-Si/TiN composite CE can filter electrons with energy within the Si bandgap, which contribute to leakage current. A n-Si/TiN/HfOx/Pt CE-RRAM with low leakage current and large on/off current ratio was designed and fabricated. Comparative analysis with conventional RRAM demonstrates over a 100-fold reduction in leakage current in a high resistance state and a tenfold improvement in the Ion/Ioff ratio. Additionally, the CE-RRAM effectively suppresses the overshoot effect in terminal I–V characteristics and exhibits good endurance, maintaining a 100 Ion/Ioff ratio after 104 cycles. Furthermore, even after 104 s at 100 °C, the state remains unchanged. Moreover, the CE-RRAM demonstrates its multi-level storage capability.