Abstract
NiO nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized using glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique over MgZnO thin film was used to design a novel memory device. The NiO NPs with average diameter ~ 9.5 nm was uniformly distributed over the MgZnO thin film surface. The MgZnO thin film/NiO NPs memory device when measured for the C-V hysteresis characteristics at varying sweep voltage demonstrated a charge trapping and de-trapping mechanism. Moreover, the device exhibited low interface states density (D(it)) (1.45 × 10(10) eV(- 1) cm(- 2)) at 1 MHz and large capacitive memory of ~ 6 V at ± 7 V. The large memory window was attributed to the better interface quality between MgZnO thin film and NiO NPs. Additionally, the device also exhibited good endurance over 1000 programme/erase cycles and longer time charge retention up to 2 × 10(4) s. The improved performance of device and more charge accumulation capacity was primarily due to the large effective area and quantum confinement effect owing to NiO NPs. Further, on performing a resistive switching analysis, the device could show a good on-off ratio (R(HRS)/R(LRS)) of 1.24 × 10(2). Therefore, the proposed device structure can be a good option for future memory applications.