Study on ferroelectric polarization induced resistive switching characteristics of neodymium-doped bismuth ferrite thin films for random access memory applications

The present work reports on resistive switching (RS) characteristics of Neodymium (Nd)-doped bismuth ferrite (BFO) layers. The Nd (2–10 at%) doped BFO thin film layers were deposited using a spray pyrolysis method. The structural analysis reveals that a higher Nd doping concentration in BFO leads to significant distortion of the prepared Nd:BFO thin films from rhombohedral to tetragonal characteristics. The morphological analysis shows that all the deposited Nd:BFO thin films have regularly arranged grains. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis reveals that the prepared Nd:BFO thin films have a higher Fe 3+ /Fe 2+ ratio and less oxygen vacancy (V O ) defects which enriches the ferroelectric characteristics in Nd:BFO layers. The polarization-electric field (P-E) and RS characteristics of the fabricated Nd:BFO-based RS device were examined. It was observed that the Nd (7 at%) doped BFO RS device shows large remnant polarization (P r ) of 0.21 μC/cm 2 and stable RS characteristics. • The present work reports on resistive switching (RS) characteristics of Neodymium (Nd)-doped bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3, BFO) layers. • The structural, morphological, ferroelectric, and RS characteristics of Nd:doped BFO (Nd:BFO) layers were investigated. • To fabricate the RS device, the Nd (2–10 at%) doped BFO layers were stacked between top silver (Ag) and bottom indium doped tin oxide (ITO) electrodes. • The role of Nd dopant in BFO towards controlling the oxygen vacancy (VO) defects and improving the ferroelectric polarization-induced RS characteristics of the device was investigated.