Abstract
The functionality of computer memory elements is currently based on multi-stability, driven either by locally manipulating the density of electrons in transistors or by switching magnetic or ferroelectric order. Another possibility is switching between metallic and insulating phases by the motion of ions, but their speed is limited by slow nucleation and inhomogeneous percolative growth. Here we demonstrate fast resistance switching in a charge density wave system caused by pulsed current injection. As a charge pulse travels through the material, it converts a commensurately ordered polaronic Mott insulating state in 1T–TaS2 to a metastable electronic state with textured domain walls, accompanied with a conversion of polarons to band states, and concurrent rapid switching from an insulator to a metal. The large resistance change, high switching speed (30 ps) and ultralow energy per bit opens the way to new concepts in non-volatile memory devices manipulating all-electronic states.
Highlights
The functionality of computer memory elements is currently based on multi-stability, driven either by locally manipulating the density of electrons in transistors or by switching magnetic or ferroelectric order
In the last few years, pulsed laser experiments have led to an improved understanding of non-equilibrium phase transitions[1,2,3,4] and metastable hidden (H) states[1,2,3,5]. Even though it can be switched with short pulses (35 fs) in charge density wave (CDW) systems[2] would be severely limited by associated disk-based technology
In this study we describe ultrafast non-volatile resistance switching with short pulsed current injection in 1T–TaS2, where injected charges create domain walls (DWs) via coupling to gradients of the CDW order parameter, converting the material from an insulator to a metal at low temperatures
Summary
The functionality of computer memory elements is currently based on multi-stability, driven either by locally manipulating the density of electrons in transistors or by switching magnetic or ferroelectric order. Another possibility is switching between metallic and insulating phases by the motion of ions, but their speed is limited by slow nucleation and inhomogeneous percolative growth. In this study we describe ultrafast non-volatile resistance switching with short pulsed current injection in 1T–TaS2, where injected charges create domain walls (DWs) via coupling to gradients of the CDW order parameter, converting the material from an insulator to a metal at low temperatures. This opens up the possibility of low-temperature ultrafast memory devices, whose absence has so far seriously impeded progress of ultrafast energy-efficient superconducting computing, for example[9]
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