We fabricated Pt/NiO/Pt capacitor structures with various bottom electrode thicknesses, $t_{BE}$, and investigated their resistance switching behaviors. The capacitors with $t_{BE} geq 50$ nm exhibited typical unipolar resistance memory switching, while those with $t_{BE} leq 30$ nm showed threshold switching. This interesting phenomenon can be explained in terms of the temperature-dependent stability of conducting filaments. In particular, the thinner $t_{BE}$ makes dissipation of Joule heat less efficient, so the filaments will be at a higher temperature and become less stable. This study demonstrates the importance of heat dissipation in resistance random access memory.
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