First-principles investigation on stability and electronic structure of Sc-dopedθ′/Al interface in Al−Cu alloys

The properties of Sc-dopedθ′(Al_(2)Cu)/Al interface in Al−Cu alloys were investigated by first-principles calculations.Sc-doped semi-coherent and coherentθ′(Al_(2)Cu)/Al interfaces(Sc doped in Al slab(S1 site),Sc doped inθ′slab(S2 site))were modeled based on calculated results and reported experiments.Through the analysis of interfacial bonding strength,it is revealed that the doping of Sc at S1 site can significantly decrease the interface energy and increase the work of adhesion.In particular,the doped coherent interface with Sc at S1 site which is occupied by interstitial Cu atoms has very good bonding strength.The electronic structure shows the strong Al—Cu bonds at the interfaces with Sc at S1 site,and the Al—Al bonds at the interfaces with Sc at S2 site are formed.The formation of strong Al—Cu and Al—Al bonds plays an important role in the enhancement of doped interface strength.

Highly improved resistive switching performances of the self-doped Pt/HfO_2:Cu/Cu devices by atomic layer deposition

Metal-oxide electrochemical metallization (ECM) memory is a promising candidate for the next generation nonvolatile memory.But this memory suffers from large dispersion of resistive switching parameters due to the intrinsic randomness of the conductive filament. In this work, we have proposed a self-doping approach to improve the resistive switching characteristics. The fabricated Pt/HfO_2:Cu/Cu device shows outstanding nonvolatile memory properties, including high uniformity, good endurance, long retention and fast switching speed. The results demonstrate that the self-doping approach is an effective method to improve the metal-oxide ECM memory performances and the self-doped Pt/HfO_2:Cu/Cu device has high potentiality for the nonvolatile memory applications in the future.