Inherent stochasticity during insulator–metal transition in VO <sub>2</sub>
Shaobo Cheng, Min‐Han Lee, Richard Tran, Yin Shi, Xing Li, Henry Navarro, Coline Adda, Qingping Meng, Long‐Qing Chen, R. C. Dynes, Shyue Ping Ong, Iván K. Schuller, Yimei Zhu
Abstract
Significance Emerging neuromorphic computing with resistive switching devices is one of the promising technologies toward hardware-based artificial intelligence. VO 2 has been demonstrated as a great candidate to emulate the spiking neurons because of the nature of its room-temperature metal–insulator transition and resistive switching. However, the fundamental understanding of the switching stochasticity in this strongly correlated material remains unaddressed. In this work, the inherent electrical and structural stochasticity in a VO 2 /TiO 2 device has been unambiguously revealed by combining in situ transmission electron microscopy experiments and ex situ resistive switching measurement on the same device. We conclude that the randomly oriented monoclinic domains in insulating VO 2 between each resistive switching is the key factor governing the stochasticity behavior.