BaTiO3 thin films on platinized silicon: Growth, characterization and resistive memory behavior

We report on the fabrication and characterization of Ti/BaTiO3/Pt memristive devices. BaTiO3 films were grown on platinized silicon by pulsed laser deposition with different laser pulse energies. We prove the existence of a correlation between the fabrication conditions and the microstructure and stoichiometry of the films. It is suggested that the small grain size found on our BaTiO3 films destabilizes the structural tetragonal distortion and inhibits the appearance of long-range ferroelectric ordering. We show that even in absence of ferroelectric resistive switching (RS), two different RS mechanisms (metallic filament formation and oxidation/reduction of the Ti top electrode) compete, and can be selected by controlling the films stoichiometry and microstructure.