Analysis of Oxide Capacitance Changes Based on the Formation–Annihilation of Conductive Filaments in a SiO2/Si-NCs/SiO2 Stack Layer-Based MIS-like Capacitor

This work reports on the correlation between resistive switching (RS) with capacitance switching (CS) states observed in SiO2/Si-nanocrystals (Si-NCs)/SiO2 stack layers using a metal-insulating semiconductor (MIS)-like device. The formation of Si-NCs, which act as conductive nodes, of about 6.7 nm in size was confirmed using a transmission electron microscope. These devices exhibit bipolar RS properties with an intermediate resistive state (IRS), which is a self-compliance behavior related to the presence of the Si-NCs layer. The current value changes from 40 nA to 550 µA, indicating RS from a high resistance state (HRS) to a low resistance state (LRS) with the IRS at 100 µA. The accumulation (CA) and inversion capacitance (CI) also change when these RS events occur. The CA switches from 2.52 nF to 3 nF with an intermediate CS of 2.7 nF for the HRS, LRS, and IRS, respectively. The CI also switches from 0.23 nF to 0.6 nF for the HRS and LRS, respectively. These devices show an ON/OFF current ratio of 104 with retention times of 104 s. Furthermore, both CA and CI states remained stable for more than 103 s. These findings highlight the potential of these devices for applications in information storage through memristor and memcapacitor technologies.