Self-assembled oligosaccharide-based block copolymers as charge-storage materials for memory devices

Abstract

Over the past few years, extremely high charge-storage capacities of glucose-based oligo- or polysaccharides have been discovered that enables such materials to hold a great potential in electronics applications due to their abundant and renewable materials. Typically, the introduction of an α-glucan-containing polysaccharide into the dielectric layer of a transistor-type memory device causes excellent irreversible electron-capture properties; hence, a transistor device embedded with oligosaccharide maltoheptaose domains expresses write-once-read-many (WORM)-type behavior, which confirms that green materials can be used for advanced electronics. However, their irreversible WORM-type characteristics also restrict the application α-glucan-containing polysaccharides in high-performance electronic devices. Recent advances in oligosaccharide-based block copolymers through the inherent immiscibility of different polymer segments can enhance not only the formation of self-assembled nanostructures but also the switching of memory properties. Furthermore, supramolecular structures composed of oligosaccharide-based block copolymers and conjugated moieties can be developed into high-performance nonvolatile organic field-effect transistor (OFET) memory devices. This mini review presents an overview of the recent literature in oligosaccharide maltoheptaose-based block copolymers and their promising applications in organic memory devices.