Hrl Laboratories, LLC

Jack A Crowell

Kyung-Ah Son

Hwa Chang Seo

Mariano J Taboada

Joshua M Doria

Jeong-sun Moon

Ryan G Quarfoth

Richard Michael Kremer

Wei L Yi

Terry B Welch

Elias A Flores

Pamela R Patterson

Xiwei Bai

Kenneth K Tsang

Stephen K Lam

Thomas C Oh

Philip A King

A high-resistivity N-doped ruthenium oxide thin film is formed on a substrate by flowing argon and nitrogen gases in a sputter chamber that includes a preconditioned ruthenium oxide sputter target. The method includes forming a plasma and sputter depositing a high-resistivity N-doped ruthenium oxide thin film with a N/Ru atomic ratio between 0.5 and 3.0 and resistivity greater than 0.01 Ω cm on the substrate in the substrate. A high-resistivity H-doped ruthenium oxide thin film is formed on a substrate by first forming an oxygen-rich ruthenium oxide thin film, followed by a hydrogen anneal. A temperature sensor structure includes a high-resistivity ruthenium oxide thin film that is doped with nitrogen or hydrogen and has a resistivity between 0.01 and 1 Ω cm.

High-resistivity ruthenium oxide thin film fabrication and temperature sensor structure with high-resistivity ruthenium oxide thin film

A process enables growing thick stoichiometric crystalline and preferably IR-transparent optical PCMO material on Si and other substrates. Sputter deposition is carried out in oxygen-free inert gas (e.g., Ar) environment, which helps to prevent decomposition of the PCMO material over the substrate. In the disclosed process, there is no need to add a seed layer prior to PCMO deposition. Moreover, no post-deposition annealing is needed in a high-temperature and high-pressure oxygen furnace, but an anneal provides certain additional benefits in terms of improved transparency at IR wavelengths. Over a long deposition time for a thick PCMO film on the high temperature (≥450° C.) substrates, the PCMO deposition is made repeated cycles of deposition of the PCMO material at the high temperature, each deposition cycle being followed by cooling the PCMO-deposited substrate to a substantially lower temperature (<50° C.). If an anneal is applied in a hydrogen environment that will cause hydrogenation of the PCMO film which yields PCMO films with an extremely small optical loss (i.e., optical extinction coefficient k<0.001) over the entire IR range.

Method for growing crystalline optical films on Si substrates which may optionally have an extremely small optical loss in the infra-red spectrum with hydrogenation of the crystalline optical films

A process enables growing thick stoichiometric crystalline and preferably IR-transparent optical PCMO material on Si and other substrates. Sputter deposition is carried out in oxygen-free inert gas (e.g., Ar) environment, which helps to prevent decomposition of the PCMO material over the substrate. In the disclosed process, there is no need to add a seed layer prior to PCMO deposition. Moreover, no post-deposition annealing is needed in a high-temperature and high-pressure oxygen furnace, but an anneal provides certain additional benefits in terms of improved transparency at IR wavelengths. Over a long deposition time for a thick PCMO film on the high temperature (&#x2265;450&#xb0; C.) substrates, the PCMO deposition is made repeated cycles of deposition of the PCMO material at the high temperature, each deposition cycle being followed by cooling the PCMO-deposited substrate to a substantially lower temperature (&#x3c;50&#xb0; C.). If an anneal is applied in a hydrogen environment that will cause hydrogenation of the PCMO film which yields PCMO films with an extremely small optical loss (i.e., optical extinction coefficient k&#x3c;0.001) over the entire IR range.

A vanadium dioxide (VO)-based threshold switch device exhibiting current-controlled negative differential resistance (S-type NDR), an electrical oscillator circuit based on the threshold switch device, a wafer including a plurality of said devices, and a method of manufacturing said device are provided. The VO-based threshold switch device exhibits volatile resistance switching and current-controlled negative differential resistance from the first time a sweeping voltage or voltage pulse is applied across the device without being treated with an electroforming process. Furthermore, the device exhibits substantially identical switching characteristics over at least 10switching operations between a high resistance state (HRS) and a low resistance state (LRS), and a plurality of threshold switch devices exhibits a threshold voltage Vspreading of less than about 25%. The threshold switch device may be included in an oscillator circuit to produce an astable oscillator that may serve as a functional building block in spiking-neuron based neuromorphic computing.

Scalable and low-voltage electroforming-free nanoscale vanadium dioxide threshold switch devices and relaxation oscillators with current controlled negative differential resistance

An electronic device comprising a substrate having a surface; a first electrode wire extending on said surface along a first direction; a vanadium pentoxide layer extending on and contacting at least a portion of said first electrode; a second electrode wire extending over said surface along a second direction, such that the second electrode wire extends on and contacts at least a portion of the vanadium pentoxide layer above the first electrode wire at a crossing point; wherein a region of vanadium dioxide is included in said vanadium pentoxide layer between the first and second electrodes at said crossing point.

Low-voltage threshold switch devices with current-controlled negative differential resistance based on electroformed vanadium oxide layer

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Camarillo, CA, United States of America

Jack A Crowell