Medium-energy ion-beam simulation of the effect of ionizing radiation and displacement damage on SiO2-based memristive nanostructures

The principles of ion-beam simulation of the effect of fast (fission) neutrons and high-energy protons based on medium-energy ion irradiation have been developed for the Au/Zr/SiO2/TiN/Ti capacitor-like memristive nanostructures demonstrating the repeatable resistive switching phenomenon. By using the Monte-Carlo approach, the irradiation fluences of H+, Si+ and O+ ions at the energy of 150 keV are determined that provide the ionization and displacement damage equivalent to the cases of space protons (15 MeV) and fission neutrons (1 MeV) irradiation. No significant change in the resistive switching parameters is observed under ion irradiation up to the fluences corresponding to the extreme fluence of 1017 cm−2 of space protons or fission neutrons. The high-level radiation tolerance of the memristive nanostructures is experimentally confirmed with the application of 15 MeV proton irradiation and is interpreted as related to the local nature of conducting filaments and high concentration of the initial field-induced defects in oxide film.