Electroforming, Switching and Memory Effects in Oxide Thin Films

Experiments on electroforming of Metal-Oxide-Metal thin film sandwiches which have been electroformed to exhibit voltage-controlled negative resistance are summarized and an outline of recent evidence in favour of localized or filamentary conduction is given. A similar review is given of the experiments on oxide sandwich structures which have been formed to exhibit current-controlled negative resistance or threshold switching and memory switching. Current theories are reviewed briefly. Finally oxide memory devices are compared with those based upon the chalcogenide glasses.