Towards low voltage resistive switch in sol-gel derived TiO2/Ta2O5 stack thin films

• Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5 stacks as memristive building blocks were fabricated by the sol-gel method for the first time.
• The developed sol-gel route towards Ta2O5 film fabrication relies on relatively inexpensive TaCl5 precursor.
• The fabricated defect-free Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5 stacks represent suitable building blocks for memristor cell fabrication.
• The memristive cells, Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5/Pt (tip), displayed a narrow switching voltage window and a high resistance ratio (103).
• The narrow window of the switching voltage in memristor opens a possibility of coupling it to neuron.

Herein, we report a memristive response from Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5/Pt stack thin films with low SET and RESET voltages, and resistance ratio of 103. For the first time, Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5 stack thin films were produced by sol-gel procedure. The morphology and elemental composition of Pt/TiO2/Ta2O5 stacks were studied by a set of complementary techniques, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), field-emission electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The thickness of the material was estimated from the transmittance spectrum by Pointwise Unconstrained Optimization Approach (PUMA).

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