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Enhanced tunneling electroresistance effect in composite ferroelectric tunnel junctions with asymmetric electrodes

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Abstract

Theoretical investigations on ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) with asymmetric electrodes and a composite barrier are presented. A large tunneling electroresistance effect exists for the Pt/SrTi03/BaTi03/SrRu03 junction; on the other hand, exchange of the dielectric and ferroelectric layer stacking sequence can seriously degrade the performance. These correlations are rationalized by the proposed concept of an asymmetry factor, defined as the ratio between the average barrier heights of FTJs for two opposite polarization orientations. We show that a large asymmetry factor is beneficial to FTJs. This work may provide a way to enhance the performance of FTJs by structure engineering.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11574073 and 51472037). Nagarajan Valanoor acknowledges support from ARC Discovery Project and BAYU Overseas Talent Plan 2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, People’s Republic of China

    Z. J. Ma, L. Q. Li, K. Liang & T. J. Zhang

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, 2052, Australia

    N. Valanoor

  3. Key Laboratory of E&M, Zhejiang University of Technology, Ministry of Education and Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 310014, People’s Republic of China

    H. P. Wu & Y. Y. Wang

  4. College of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Chongqing Key Laboratory of Nano/Micro Composites and Devices, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, People’s Republic of China

    X. Y. Liu

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  1. Z. J. Ma
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  2. L. Q. Li
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  3. K. Liang
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Correspondence to T. J. Zhang or N. Valanoor.

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This author was an editor of this journal during the review and decision stage. For the MRS policy on review and publication of manuscripts authored by editors, please refer to http://www.mrs.org/editor-manuscripts.

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The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2018.212.

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Ma, Z.J., Li, L.Q., Liang, K. et al. Enhanced tunneling electroresistance effect in composite ferroelectric tunnel junctions with asymmetric electrodes. MRS Communications 9, 258–263 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2018.212

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