Resistive switching behavior in single crystal SrTiO3 annealed by laser

Single crystal SrTiO3 (STO) wafers were annealed by XeCl laser (lambda = 308 nm) with different fluences of 0.4 J/cm(2), 0.6 J/cm(2) and 0.8 J/cm(2), respectively. Ti/Pt electrodes were sputtered on the surface of STO wafer to form co-planar capacitor-like structures of Pt/Ti/STO/Ti/Pt. Current-Voltage measurements show that the leakage current is enhanced by increasing laser fluence. Resistive switching behavior is only observed in the sample annealed by laser with relatively high fluence after an electro-forming process. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements indicate that the amount of oxygen vacancies increases with the increase of laser fluence. This work indicates resistive switching appears when enough oxygen vacancies are generated by the laser, which form conductive filaments under an external electric field. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.