Morphological and electical changes in TiO2 memristive devices induced by elecroforming and switching

Combining delamination technique with conductive AFM, we have been able to reveal spatially resolved morphology and conductance changes in TiO2 memristive junctions after electroforming and switching. Being able to distingusish between effects caused by electroforming and switching, respectively, we could demonstrate that electroforming results in the creation of localized conductance channels induced by oxgen evolution while subsequent resistive switching causes an additional conducting structure next to the forming spot. We observe that the lateral extent of this structure depends on the number of switching cycles indicating an ongoing breaking of existing and creation of neighbouring current channels during subsequent switching