Non-volatile resistive switching in nanoscaled elemental tellurium by vapor transport deposition on gold

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are highly promising as resistive switching materials for neuromorphic and in-memory computing owing to their fascinating properties derived from their low thickness. However, most of the reported 2D resistive switching materials struggle with complex growth methods or limited growth area. Tellurium, a novel member of single-element 2D materials, is showing pioneering characteristics such as simplicity in chemistry, structure, and synthesis which make it highly suitable for various applications. This study presents the first memristor design based on nanoscaled elemental tellurium synthesized by vapor transport deposition (VTD) method at a temperature as low as 100 °C in full compliance with a back-end-of-line (BEOL) processing. We demonstrate that the memristive behavior of nanoscaled tellurium can be enhanced by selecting gold as the substrate material which results in a lower set voltage and reduced energy consumption. In addition, the formation of conductive paths which in turn lead to resistive switching behavior on the gold substrate is proven to be driven by the gold-tellurium interface reconfiguration during the VTD process as revealed by energy electron loss spectroscopy analysis of the interface. Our findings reveal the potential of nanoscaled tellurium as a versatile and scalable material for neuromorphic computing systems as well as the influential role of gold as electrode material in enhancing tellurium’s memristive performance.