Sol-gel synthesis and nonvolatile resistive switching behaviors of wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ade1c2

Abstract A facile sol-gel method and heating treatment process have been reported to synthesize the wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms with the preferential growth orientation along the [001] direction on the FTO substrates. The as-prepared wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms-based memristor with the W/ZnO/FTO sandwich has demonstrated a reliable nonvolatile bipolar resistive switching behaviors with an ultralow set voltage of about +3 V and reset voltage of approximately -3.6 V, high resistive switching ratio of more than two orders of magnitude, good resistance retention ability (up to 10⁴ s), and excellent durability. Furthermore, the resistive switching behavior in the low-resistance state is attributed to the Ohmic conduction mechanism, while the resistive switching behavior in the high-resistance state is controlled by the trap-modulated space charge limited current (SCLC) mechanism. In addition, the conductive filament model regulated by the oxygen vacancies has been proposed, where the nonvolatile bipolar resistive switching behaviors could be attributed to the formation and rupture of conductive filaments in the W/ZnO/FTO memristor. This work demonstrates that the as-prepared wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms-based W/ZnO/FTO memristor has promising prospects in future nonvolatile memory applications.

Keywords: sol-gel ZnO nanofilms memristor nonvolatile oxygen vacancies

Received: 10 April 2025
Revised: 11 May 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 06 June 2025

PACS:	73.40.Rw	(Metal-insulator-metal structures)
	72.60.+g	(Mixed conductivity and conductivity transitions)
	72.80.Ga	(Transition-metal compounds)

Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 62341305, 61805053, and 22269002) and the Science and Technology Project of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China (Grant Nos. AD19110038 and AD21238033).

Corresponding Authors: Zhi-Qiang Yu, Tang-You Sun
E-mail: zhiqiangyu@alumni.hust.edu.cn;suntangyou@guet.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Zhi-Qiang Yu(余志强), Jin-Hao Jia(贾金皓), Mei-Lian Ou(欧梅莲), Tang-You Sun(孙堂友), and Zhi-Mou Xu(徐智谋) Sol-gel synthesis and nonvolatile resistive switching behaviors of wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms 2025 Chin. Phys. B 34 127302

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Sol-gel synthesis and nonvolatile resistive switching behaviors of wurtzite phase ZnO nanofilms

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