Barrier design for steering elements

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9019744-B2
Application number	US-201213728739-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 27, 2012
Priority date	Dec 27, 2012
Publication date	Apr 28, 2015
Grant date	Apr 28, 2015

Abstract

Steering elements suitable for memory device applications can have low leakage currents at low voltages to reduce sneak current paths for non selected devices, and high leakage currents at high voltages to minimize voltage drops during device switching. In some embodiments, the steering element can include a first electrode, a second electrode, and a graded dielectric layer sandwiched between the two electrodes. The graded dielectric layer can include a varied composition from the first electrode to the second electrode. Graded energy level at the top and/or at the bottom of the band gap, which can be a result of the graded dielectric layer composition, and/or the work function of the electrodes can be configured to suppress tunneling and thermionic current in an off-state of the steering element and/or to maximize a ratio of the tunneling and thermionic currents in an on-state and in an off-state of the steering element.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A steering element comprising
a first electrode;
a second electrode; and
a dielectric layer disposed between the first and the second electrodes,
wherein the dielectric layer has a conduction band and a valence band and a band gap between the conduction band and the valence band,
wherein the conduction band has a conduction band minimum energy level,
wherein the conduction band minimum energy level increases from the first electrode to a first point…

Assignees

• Intermolecular Inc

Inventors

• Barabash Sergey
• Lee Mankoo
• Pramanik Dipankar

Classifications

• G11C13/003 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C13/0002

  Physics · mapped topic

• H01L45/1633

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L45/08

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L27/2463

  Electricity · mapped topic