Environment-friendly resistive memory based on natural casein: Role of electrode and bio-material concentration

Abstract

It is well-known that moisture plays a crucial role on the stability of bio-material-based resistive memory devices. In this work, we report a bio-material-based resistive memory device that does not depend on moisture to attain a stable performance. Sodium caseinate (NaCas) obtained from bovine milk, is used as the active material with silver (Ag) as the top electrode (TE) and indium tin oxide (ITO) as the bottom electrode (BE) for the implementation of the device. The device exhibits Write-Once-Read-Many times (WORM) type current-voltage characteristics with a sufficiently large data retention of >106 s, a cyclic endurance of >6 × 103, and a switching voltage of ∼1.06 V. The use of the less reactive Ag for the TE facilitates the removal of the capacitive nature of the device characteristics. It is found that increasing the NaCas concentration improves the memory performance. The role of the Ag electrode in removing the capacitive nature and possible switching mechanism of the device is suggested.