Electric-pulse-controlled Schottky-like/Ohmic contact for Ag/Nb-doped SrTiO3 junctions

Applying conductive silver paint to the surface of a 0.1 wt% Nb-doped SrTiO3 (STON) substrate resulted in an Ag/STON junction device. By applying electric current pulses to the junction, multiple resistance states ranging from high resistance (R≈75 kΩ) to low resistance (R≈2 kΩ) were observed. By alternating the electric pulses, the Ag/STON junctions oscillated between the two resistance states, which has potential applications in memory devices. Current–voltage (I–V) measurements were performed to study the interface between the Ag and STON substrate. The interface characteristics were dependent on the resistance state and could be easily controlled by the electric pulse. When the high-resistance state transitioned to the low-resistance state, a change from a Schottky-like to Ohmic contact was detected. These electric-pulse-induced variations in the I–V relationship may be interesting for applications such as multi-channel I–V transformers.