Low-Temperature Fabrication of Mesoporous SiO₂ CBRAM Memory Cells on Flexible Substrates

Conductive bridge random access memories (CBRAMs) are promising candidates for memory applications on flexible substrates. In this study, mesoporous SiO2 CBRAM memory cells were fabricated and tested using a low-temperature process as low as 120 °C, making them compatible with various flexible substrates. A comparative study was conducted to validate the characteristics and performance of these memory cells in relation to conventional manufacturing process. We demonstrate the nonvolatile characteristics of the cells, which feature low switching voltages, a high-resistance ratio of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^{4}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> between high- and low-resistance states, and reliable bipolar switching behavior, enduring over <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> write-read-erase-read cycles. Furthermore, memory cells fabricated on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates using the low-temperature process show stable and highly promising responses to mechanical stress. These results pave the way for the fabrication of simple, low-cost crossbar memory arrays on flexible substrates using a combination of sol-gel and inkjet-printing processes.