Abstract
A simulation study to characterize the influence of an elongation of the conductive filament in resistive switching devices is presented. A previously developed simulation tool has been used for this purpose. This simulator accounts for ohmic conduction through conductive filaments and for quantum conduction through a barrier (the last resulting in a nonlinear I–V curve, that it is the case of the samples studied in this work). For modeling the quantum conduction, the quantum point contact model is used. The conductive filament length has been swept from a reference value to a value increased in 20%. The influence of the elongation on the reset current and voltage depends on the relative value of the quantum and ohmic resistances, and, therefore, it is not too high in most of the cases studied here. That is because the quantum resistance predominates over the ohmic resistance (the only resistive component affected by the elongation of the filament when the quantum point contact parameters are maintained). However, actually a filament extension could also cause a change in the quantum conduction parameters. Therefore, in order to complete this study, the effect of this change on the I–V curve and reset currents and voltages has also been analyzed.