A process of creating controlled silver nanostructures using atomic force microscope technique is reported. The nanostructures are grown on both the silica surface and silica−indium-tin-oxide interface of a silver salt impregnated mesoporous silica film, deposited on indium tin oxide coated glass substrate. Voltage is applied between a conductive atomic force microscope tip and the indium tin oxide substrate to create the silver nanostructures. The possibility of switching the positions of the nanostructures between the silica film surface and the film−indium-tin-oxide interface, by reversing the electrical polarity of the tip, is demonstrated. It is also shown that the conductive channels can be created through the silica layer provided that the created metallic nanostructures are large enough to grow inside the film volume from one side to the other. The electrical conductivity of the film can be locally changed in a reversible manner by applying successively negative and positive voltages to the tip.

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The Al-doped HfO x flexible resistive random access memory (ReRAM) device with Ag top electrode (TE) is fabricated on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with low thermal budget process. The oxygen vacancies created by Al doping may assist Ag inclusion to create/rupture the filament at lower operating voltages (V SET ≈ 0.46 V and V RESET ≈ −0.93 V) and SET/RESET currents (I SET ≈ 2 × 10−5 A and I RESET ≈ 8 × 10−5 A). The Ag/Al:HfO x /ITO/PET ReRAM exhibits highly stable resistive switching (RS) behaviour with lower switching power (P SET ≈ 9.2 µW and P RESET ≈ 74.4 µW). The stable switching parameters like SET/RESET voltages, resistances in high resistance states (HRS) and low resistance states (LRS) are observed even at higher temperature (100 °C) and in flexible condition (i.e. 5 mm dia). The current conduction mechanism in HRS is dominated by space charge limited conduction whereas LRS is not completely Ohmic in nature. The RS mechanism has been explained by the formation of the combined effect of Ag atoms and oxygen vacancies. Considering the improved performance of the ReRAM device fabricated at low-temperature process, it may provide a promising candidate for the low power flexible electronics applications.