Improved Resistance Switching Stability in Fe-Doped ZnO Thin Films Through Pulsed Magnetic Field Annealing.

Five percent of Fe-doped ZnO (ZnO:Fe) thin films were deposited on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates by a spin-coating method. The films were annealed without (ZnO:Fe-0T) and with a pulsed magnetic field of 4 T (ZnO:Fe-4TP) to investigate the magnetic annealing effect on the resistance switching (RS) behavior of the Pt/ZnO:Fe/Pt structures. Compared with the ZnO:Fe-0T film, the ZnO:Fe-4TP film showed improved RS performance regarding the stability of the set voltage and the resistance of the high resistance state. Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses revealed that the ZnO:Fe-4TP film contains more uniform grains and a higher density of oxygen vacancies, which promote the easier formation of conducting filaments along similar paths and the stability of switching parameters. These results suggest that external magnetic fields can be used to prepare magnetic oxide thin films with improved resistance switching performance for memory device applications.

Localized character of 4f electrons in CeRhx (x=2,3) and CeNix (x=2,5).

We have measured Ce 4f spectral weights of extremely alpha-like Ce transition metal intermetallic compounds CeRhx (x=2,3) and CeNix (x=2,5) by using the bulk-sensitive resonant photoemission technique at the Ce M5(3d(5/2)-->4f) edge. High energy resolution and longer escape depth of photoemitted electron at this photon energy enabled us to distinguish the sharp Kondo resonance tails at the Fermi level, which can be well described by the Gunnarsson-Schönhammer calculation based on the Anderson impurity Hamiltonian. On the other hand, the itinerant 4f band description shows big discrepancies, which implies that Ce 4f electrons retain localized characters even in extremely alpha-like compounds.