From post-breakdown conduction to resistive switching effect in thin dielectric films

The hysteretic nature of the filamentary electron transport in MIM/MIS resistive switching devices is modeled within the framework of the Landauer theory for mesoscopic conductors. It is shown that a two-equation system, one equation for the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of a nano-sized constriction and a second equation for the time dependence of the confining potential yield the wide variety of I-V hysteretic behaviors reported in literature. The proposed model is consistent with a number of experimental observations and is a clear example of a nonlinear memristive system. Moreover, because of its mathematical simplicity and flexibility it is well-suited for circuit simulators.