Resistive Switching and Current Conduction Mechanisms in Hexagonal Boron Nitride Threshold Memristors with Nickel Electrodes

Abstract

The two-dimensional (2D) insulating material hexagonal boron nitride (h BN) has attracted much attention as the active medium in memristive devices due to its favorable physical properties, among others, a wide bandgap that enables a large switching window. Metal filament formation is frequently suggested for h-BN devices as the resistive switching (RS) mechanism, usually supported by highly specialized methods like conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) or transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Here, we investigate the switching of multilayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) threshold memristors with two nickel (Ni) electrodes through their current conduction mechanisms. Both the high and the low resistance states are analyzed through temperature-dependent current-voltage measurements. We propose the formation and retraction of nickel filaments along boron defects in the h-BN film as the resistive switching mechanism. We corroborate our electrical data with TEM analyses to establish temperature-dependent current-voltage measurements as a valuable tool for the analysis of resistive switching phenomena in memristors made of 2D materials. Our memristors exhibit a wide and tunable current operation range and low stand-by currents, in line with the state of the art in h-BN-based threshold switches, a low cycle-to-cycle variability of 5%, and a large On/Off ratio of 10${^7}$.