Electrical 1D tomography of nanofilaments using in-operando electrical characterization of Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cells during FIB milling

• In-operando electrical tomography is obtained using electrical measurements during FIB milling.
• In Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cells, the conducting nanofilament has a “tree-like” structure.
• This electrical shape is consistent with the crystalline defect map obtained from HRTEM.
• A subnanometric spatial resolution is achieved.
• An atomistic model involving oxygen vacancies is proposed.

Electrical characterization during focused ion beam (FIB) milling of an elementary Pt/NiO/Pt resistive memory cell is used to localize the conducting channels and to estimate the size and shape of the conducting nanofilament. A good agreement is found with cross sectional high resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) images. This methodology is a potential tool to obtain in-operando electrical tomography of conducting paths with subnanometric spatial resolution.

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