Influence of Top Electrode Metal on Resistive Switching in Multilayer MOCVD MoS ₂ Memristors

ABSTRACT Two‐dimensional (2D) materials such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) show promise for memristor applications. Most MoS 2 memristors use vertical metal/MoS 2 /metal stacks with gold or silver active electrodes and rely on electron‐beam evaporation; sputtering is seldom used. This study investigates palladium (Pd), nickel (Ni), and aluminum (Al) as electrodes and compares resistive switching (RS) performance for sputtered versus evaporated top electrodes. Pd acts as a passive electrode with minimal contribution to RS. Devices with Ni active electrodes exhibit very low initial resistance and a small RS window, consistent with deposition‐induced damage to MoS 2 . Sputtered Al yields highly reproducible RS in Pd/MoS 2 /Al memristors, achieving 95% yield across 64 devices. In contrast, evaporated Al forms a parasitic oxide at the Al/MoS 2 interface that inhibits RS, even when deposited at a base pressure comparable to that of sputtered Al. Area scaling and temperature‐dependent measurements indicate Al filament formation and dissolution via electrochemical metallization as the RS mechanism. Metal‐specific energy barriers for filament formation explain the superior performance of sputtered Al. Overall, the results identify Al as an effective active electrode within the investigated device architecture and show that sputtering is a viable alternative for top‐electrode deposition because it suppresses interfacial oxide formation.