The temperature-dependent physical and electrical characteristics of a polymer/RAFT-polymerstabilized nanoparticle system for organic nonvolatile memory

Abstract

We have fabricated and investigated organic memory diodes, comprising a single polymerlayer and Au nanoparticles stabilized by the same polymer material utilizing areversible addition–fragmentation transfer technique to suppress phase separation.The organic memory diodes exhibit well reproducible and prominent currentbistability and good charge retention characteristics free from phase separation issues.Nondestructive spectroscopic ellipsometry is used to characterize the physical properties ofthe polymer/nanoparticle composites, such as the polymer’s effective dielectricfunction/layer thickness and the Au nanoparticle’s effective volume fraction, which areimportant parameters for gaining insightful information on charge transport in thissystem. Temperature-dependent analysis of the read/write current behaviorssuggests that charge transport in such a polymer/Au nanoparticle composite isdominated by carrier hopping via shallow-level traps at the high field regime.