Reversible Loss of Bistability in Oxygen-Free Ambience

Reversible Loss of Bistability in Oxygen-Free Ambience 

A change of the atmosphere has a remarkable effect on the switching characteristic. For devices with an oxide interlayer the removal of oxygen leads to a reversible loss of bistability. After testing them in ambient atmosphere to confirm their bistability, devices were placed into a vacuum recipient, which was evacuated to a pressure of 10 mbar. Subsequently, the I- V characteristic was taken in vacuo. No switching was observed. The oxide interlayer devices showed a nearly ohmic characteristic with currents comparable to the high conducting state. 

The I- V characteristic in vacuum shows a slight ohmic behaviour without any threshold voltage or NDR region. Contrary to these curves, the same device behaves very similarly in air and dry O2. In general, the threshold voltage and the NDR region varied from sweep to sweep and no relationship could be noticed between the condition in air or pure O2. 

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