Investigation on bistable resistance switching characteristics of an organic donor–acceptor material for high density data storage

Abstract

In this paper, organic thin films of a donor-acceptor material N,N′-bis[4-(1,1-dicyanovinyl)phenyl]N,N′-bis(4-fluorophenyl)benzidine (TPD-FCN) were prepared by a vacuum vapor deposition method. The N,N,N′,N′-tetraphenylbenzidine moiety can be served as an excellent nonplanar electron donor and the 1,1-dicyanovinyl group is an excellent electron acceptor. The typical macroscopic I–V curves of the device based on TPD-FCN thin film exhibit a bistable resistive switching characteristics for memory application. Furthermore, stable nanoscale electrical information storage was achieved on the TPD-FCN thin film by scanning tunneling microscopy. The average size of the recorded marks is about 10 nm. Local I–V characteristics suggest that the formation of the recording dots is due to the local change of electrical property of the thin film, and the intermolecular charge transfer induced by an electric field is proposed as the reason for the information dot formation. The results indicate that TPD-FCN is a promising candidate for nanoscale recording materials.