QUANTIZED ELECTRON-TRANSPORT IN AMORPHOUS-SILICON MEMORY STRUCTURES

Conduction in the ON state of amorphous-silicon memory devices is constrained to a narrow conducting filament. We present experimental evidence to show that the memory ON state is associated with quantized electron transport which is presumably related to quantum confinement effects in the small conducting filament. Current-voltage characteristics of typical ON states exhibit discrete steps which correspond to quantized resistance states and the steps split appropriately in a magnetic field. An especially notable feature is that the quantization can be observed at relatively high temperatures (up to approximately 190 K).