We study from first principles the transport properties of metal/monoclinic-HfO${}_2$/metal and metal/amorphous-HfO${}_2$/metal structures where paths built from oxygen vacancies in the hafnium oxide host are created. Using a Green's function formalism coupled with a density functional theory code, we compute the conductance of vacancy filaments of different thicknesses, showing that even the thinnest filaments can sustain conductive channels, which should display signs of conductance quantization, for both the monoclinic and amorphous phases of hafnia.

• Received 23 May 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.165445