A Multiloop and Full Amplitude Hysteresis Model for Molecular Electronics

Abstract

Although molecular electronics is in its infancy, many significant advances have been reported in this field and, at present, it is necessary to study different types of materials that are potentially useful in molecular electronics and its properties. Experimental and theoretical studies have shown that almost all nanoscale devices such as molecular devices usually exhibit hysteresis characteristic due to various phenomena such as electron energy discreteness, electron tunneling, Coulomb blockade effects, etc. Some efforts have been made for modeling molecular electronics; however, not all of them support the hysteresis behavior. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper for the first time proposes a general model for modeling the hysteresis behavior in molecular electronics. The proposed model is a HSPICE compatible circuit model and one of its main features is the ability to model both dc and ac behaviors of molecular electronic materials. The model can accept all amplitudes in the definite range, is continuous in the whole range and its parameters have minimum complexity resulting in maximum simplicity in terms of parameter extraction. Correct operation of the proposed circuit model and its accuracy are investigated by applying it to some hysteresis graphs reported in the literature, and the results are shown in this paper.