Abstract
We report large-area (∼3 mm2), pinhole free crossbar junctions of thin films of the molecular complex [Fe(HB(tz)3)2] displaying spin transition around 336 K. The charge transport in the thinner junctions (10 and 30 nm) occurs by a tunneling mechanism, which is not affected substantially by the spin transition. The thicker junctions (100 and 200 nm) exhibit rectifying behavior and a reproducible drop of their electrical resistance by ca. 65–80% when switching the molecules from the high-spin to the low-spin state. This current modulation is ascribed to a bulk-limited charge transport mechanism via a thermally activated hopping process. The demonstrated possibility of resistance switching in ambient conditions provides appealing prospects for the implementation of molecular spin crossover materials in electronic and spintronic devices.
Highlights
Driven by the aim to better understand the physical mechanisms, which couple the spin state of the molecules with the device electrical resistance, some of us recently reported on large-area crossbar devices with nanometric spacer layers of the SCO compound [Fe(H2B(pz)2)2(phen)]
The optical switching from the LS to the HS state led to a well reproducible decrease of the current intensity by ~7 % and ~50 % for the 10 and 30 nm junctions, respectively, which was attributed to the reduced hopping rate of charge carriers in the HS state
In this Letter, we extend this investigation to thin films of another SCO complex [Fe(HB(tz)3)2] 2, which displays SCO around room temperature
Summary
Driven by the aim to better understand the physical mechanisms, which couple the spin state of the molecules with the device electrical resistance, some of us recently reported on large-area crossbar devices with nanometric spacer layers of the SCO compound [Fe(H2B(pz)2)2(phen)] The ITO/1/Al junctions with 10 nm thick SCO films showed an activationless, multistep tunneling conductivity, while the 30 and 100 nm thick junctions exhibited thermally activated, bulk transport-limited currents with a diode-like rectifying behavior.
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