γ-ray irradiation effects on TiN/HfOx/Pt resistive random access memory devices

Resistive random access memory (RRAM) is widely recognized to be an excellent candidate of non-volatile memory for the next generation, especially for potential application in aerospace or nuclear industry due to its intrinsic radiation-hard superiority to other non-volatile memories. Therefore, a classical RRAM device with the structure of TiN/HfO_x/Pt is fabricated and the total ionizing dose (TID) effects of γ-ray irradiation on the switching behaviors and memory performance are studied in this work. The switching behavior and memory performance of the irradiated devices are investigated and compared to the pre-irradiation ones. The switching mechanism, device resistances and operation voltages are affected, in various degrees. The irradiation-induced oxygen vacancies and holes are proposed to be the cause of the variation. The TiN/HfO_x/Pt RRAM device exhibits a good immunity to the γ-ray irradiation since the performance variation are tolerable in application.