Nano Suboxide Layer Generated In Ta2o5 By Ar+ Ion Irradiation

Ta2O5/TaOx heterostructure has become a leading oxide layer in memory cells and/or a bidirectional selector for resistive random access memory (RRAM). Although atomic layer deposition (ALD) was found to be uniquely suitable for depositing uniform and conformal films on complex topographies, it is hard to use ALD to grow suboxide TaOx layer. In this study, tantalum oxide films with a composition of Ta2O5 were grown by ALD. Using Ar+ ion irradiation, the suboxide was formed in the top layer of Ta2O5 films by observing the Ta core level shift toward lower binding energy with angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. By controlling the energy and irradiation time of an Ar+ ion beam, Ta2O5/TaOx heterostructure can be reliably produced on ALD films, which provides a way to fabricate the critical switching layers of RRAM. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.