Field enhanced charge carrier reconfiguration in electronic and ionic coupled dynamicpolymer resistive memory

Abstract

Dynamic resistive memory devices based on a conjugated polymer composite (PPy0DBS − Li + (PPy:polypyrrole; DBS − : dodecylbenzenesulfonate)), with field-driven ion migration, have been demonstrated. Inthis work the dynamics of these systems has been investigated and it has been concludedthat increasing the applied field can dramatically increase the rate at which informationcan be ‘written’ into these devices. A conductance model using space charge limited currentcoupled with an electric field induced ion reconfiguration has been successfully utilized tointerpret the experimentally observed transient conducting behaviors. The memory devicesuse the rising and falling transient current states for the storage of digital states.The magnitude of these transient currents is controlled by the magnitude andwidth of the write/read pulse. For the 500 nm length devices used in this work anincrease in ‘write’ potential from 2.5 to 5.5 V decreased the time required to createa transient conductance state that can be converted into the digital signal by50 times. This work suggests that the scaling of these devices will be favorableand that ‘write’ times for the conjugated polymer composite memory deviceswill decrease rapidly as ion driving fields increase with decreasing device size.