Measurement of the activation energies of oxygen ion diffusion in yttria stabilized zirconia by flicker noise spectroscopy

The low-frequency noise in a nanometer-sized virtual memristor consisting of a contact of a conductive atomic force microscope (CAFM) probe to an yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin film deposited on a conductive substrate is investigated. YSZ is a promising material for the memristor application since it is featured by high oxygen ion mobility, and the oxygen vacancy concentration in YSZ can be controlled by varying the molar fraction of the stabilizing yttrium oxide. Due to the low diameter of the CAFM probe contact to the YSZ film (similar to 10nm), we are able to measure the electric current flowing through an individual filament both in the low resistive state (LRS) and in the high r…